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THE 


METTLE OE THE PASTURE 


BY 

JAMES LANE ALLEN 

AUTHOR OF “THE CHOIR INVISIBLE,” “A KENTUCKY 
CARDINAL,” ETC., ETC. 


NEW YORK 

GROSSET & DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1903, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 

Set up, electrotypcd, and published July, 1903. 
Reprinted August, September, October, November, 
1903 ; May, 1908 ; March, 1912. 



Norfaoolr 

J. 8. Ctuhing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood^ Mass., U.S.A. 


STo JHg Sister 



PART FIRST 



THE METTLE OF THE 
PASTURE 


I 

She did not wish any supper and she sank 
forgetfully back into the stately oak chair. 
One of her hands lay palm upward on her 
white lap ; in the other, which drooped over 
the arm of the chair, she clasped a young 
rose dark red amid its leaves — an inverted 
torch of love. 

Old-fashioned glass doors behind her 
reached from a high ceiling to the floor; 
they had been thrown open and the curtains 
looped apart. Stone steps outside led down- 
ward to the turf in the rear of the house. 
This turf covered a lawn unroughened by 
plant or weed ; but over it at majestic inter- 
vals grew clumps of gray pines and dim-blue, 
ever wintry firs. Beyond lawn and ever- 
greens a flower garden bloomed ; and beyond 

B 1 


2 


The Mettle of the Pasture 

the high fence enclosing this, tree-tops and 
house-tops of the town could be seen ; and 
beyond these — away in the west — the sky 
was flaming now with the falling sun. 

A few bars of dusty gold hung poised, 
across the darkening spaces of the supper 
room. Ripples of the evening air, entering 
through the windows, flowed over her, lifting 
the thick curling locks at the nape of her 
neck, creeping forward over her shoulders 
and passing along her round arms under the 
thin fabric of her sleeves. 

They aroused her, these vanishing beams 
of the day, these arriving breezes of the 
night ; they became secret invitations to es- 
cape from the house into the privacy of the 
garden, where she could be alone with 
thoughts of her great happiness now fast 
approaching. 

A servant entered noiselessly, bringing a 
silver bowl of frozen cream. Beside this, at 
the head of the table before her grand- 
mother, he placed scarlet strawberries gath- 
ered that morning under white dews. She 
availed herself of the slight interruption and 


3 


The Mettle of the Pasture 

rose with an apology ; but even when love 
bade her go, love also bade her linger ; she 
could scarce bear to be with them, but she 
could scarce bear to be alone. She paused 
at her grandmother’s chair to stroke the 
dry bronze puffs on her temples — a unique 
impulse ; she hesitated compassionately a 
moment beside her aunt, who had never 
married ; then, passing around to the opposite 
side of the table, she took between her palms 
the sunburnt cheeks of a youth, her cousin, 
and buried her own tingling cheek in his 
hair. Instinct at that moment drew her most 
to him because he was young as she was 
young, having life and love before him as 
she had ; only, for him love stayed far in the 
future ; for her it came to-night. 

When she had crossed the room and 
reached the hall, she paused and glanced 
back, held by the tension of cords which she 
dreaded to break. She felt that nothing 
would ever be the same again in the home 
of her childhood. Until marriage she would 
remain under its dear honored roof, and there 
would be no outward interruption of its 


4 The Mettle of the Pasture 

familiar routine ; but for her all the bonds of 
life would have become loosened from old 
ties and united in him alone whom this even- 
ing she was to choose as her lot and destiny. 
Under the influence of that fresh fondness, 
therefore, which wells up so strangely within 
us at the thought of parting from home and 
home people, even though we may not 
greatly care for them, she now stood gazing 
at the picture they formed as though she 
were already calling it back through the dis- 
tances of memory and the changes of future 
years. 

They, too, had shifted their positions and 
were looking at her with one undisguised ex- 
pression of pride and love ; and they smiled 
as she smiled radiantly back at them, waving 
a last adieu with her spray of rose and turn- 
ing quickly in a dread of foolish tears. 

“ Isabel.” 

It was the youthful voice of her grand- 
mother. She faced them again with a little 
frown of feigned impatience. 

‘‘If you are going into the garden, throw 
something around your shoulders.” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 5 

‘‘Thank you, grandmother; I have my 
lace.” 

Crossing the hall, she went into the front 
parlor, took from a damask sofa a rare shawl 
of white lace and, walking to a mirror, threw 
it over her head, absently noting the effect 
in profile. She lifted this off and, breaking 
the rose from part of its stem, pinned that 
on her breast. Then, stepping aside to one 
of the large lofty windows, she stood there 
under the droop of the curtains, sunk into 
reverie again and looking out upon the yard 
and the street beyond. 

Hardly a sound disturbed the twilight still- 
ness. A lamplighter passed, torching the 
grim lamps. A sauntering carrier threw the 
evening newspaper over the gate, with his 
unintelligible cry. A dog-cart rumbled by, 
and later, a brougham ; people were not yet 
returned from driving on the country turn- 
pikes. Once, some belated girls clattered 
past on ponies. But already little children, 
bare-armed, bare-necked, swinging lanterns, 
and attended by proud young mothers, were 
on their way to a summer-night festival in 


6 


The Mettle of the Pasture 

the park. Up and down the street family 
groups were forming on the verandas. The 
red disks of cigars could be seen, and the 
laughter of happy women was wafted across 
the dividing fences and shrubbery, and vines. 

Breaking again through her reverie, which 
seemed to envelop her, wherever she went, 
like a beautiful cloud, she left the window 
and appeared at the front door. Palms stood 
on each side of the granite steps, and these 
arched their tropical leaves far over toward 
her quiet feet as she passed down. Along 
the pavement were set huge green boxes, in 
which white oleanders grew, and flaming pome- 
granates, and crepe myrtle thickly roofed 
with pink. She was used to hover about 
them at this hour, but she strolled past, un- 
mindful now, the daily habit obliterated, the 
dumb little tie quite broken. The twisted 
newspaper lay white on the shadowed pave- 
ment before her eyes and she did not see 
that. She walked on until she reached the 
gate and, folding her hands about one of the 
brass globes surmounting the iron spikes, 
leaned over and probed with impatient eyes 


The Mettle of the Pasture 7 

the long dusk of the street ; as far as he could 
be seen coming she wished to see him. 

It was too early. So she filled her eyes 
with pictures of the daylight fading over 
woods and fields far out in the country. But 
the entire flock of wistful thoughts settled at 
last about a large house situated on a wooded 
hill some miles from town. A lawn sloped 
upward to it from the turnpike, and there 
was a gravelled driveway. She ' unlatched 
the gate, approached the house, passed 
through the wide hall, ascended the stairs, ' 
stood at the door of his room — waiting. 
Why did he not come ? How could he 
linger ? 

Dreamily she turned back; and following a 
narrow walk, passed to the rear of the house 
and thence across the lawn of turf toward 
the garden. 

A shower had fallen early in the day and 
the grass had been cut afterwards. After- 
noon sunshine had drunk the moisture, leav- 
ing the fragrance released and floating. The 
warmth of the cooling earth reached her foot 
through the sole of her slipper. On the 


8 The Mettle of the Pasture 

plume of a pine, a bird was sending its last 
call after the bright hours, while out of the 
firs came the tumult of plainer kinds as they 
mingled for common sleep. The heavy cry 
of the bullbat fell from far above, and look- 
ing up quickly for a sight of his winnowing 
wings under the vast purpling vault she be- 
held the earliest stars. 

Thus, everywhere, under her feet, over 
her head, and beyond the reach of vision, 
because inhabiting that realm into which the 
spirit alone can send its aspiration and its 
prayer, was one influence, one spell : the 
warmth of the good wholesome earth, its 
breath of sweetness, its voices of peace and 
love and rest, the majesty of its flashing 
dome ; and holding all these safe as in the 
hollow of a hand the Eternal Guardianship 
of the world. 

As she strolled around the garden under 
the cloudy flush of the evening sky dressed 
in white, a shawl of white lace over one arm, 
a rose on her breast, she had the exquisite- 
ness of a long past, during which women 
have been chosen in marriage for health 


9 


The Mettle of the Pasture 

and beauty and children and the power to 
charm. The very curve of her neck implied 
generations of mothers who had valued grace. 
Generations of forefathers had imparted to 
her walk and bearing their courage and their 
pride. The precision of the eyebrow, the 
chiselled perfection of the nostril, the loveli- 
ness of the short red lip ; the well-arched 
feet, small, but sure of themselves ; the eyes 
that were kind and truthful and thoughtful ; 
the sheen of her hair, the fineness of her 
skin, her nobly cast figure, — all these were 
evidences of descent from a people that had 
reached in her the purity, without having 
lost the vigor, of one of its highest types. 

She had supposed that when he came the 
servant would receive him and announce his 
arrival, but in a little while the sound of a 
step on the gravel reached her ear; she 
paused and listened. It was familiar, but it 
was unnatural — -she remembered this after- 
wards. 

She began to walk away from him, her beau- 
tiful head suddenly arched far forward, her 
bosom rising and falling under her clasped 


lo The Mettle of the Pasture 

hands, her eyes filling with wonderful light. 
Then regaining composure because losing 
consciousness of herself in the thought of 
him, she turned and with divine simplicity 
of soul advanced to meet him. 

Near the centre of the garden there was 
an open spot where two pathways crossed ; 
and it was here, emerging from the shrub- 
bery, that they came in sight of each other. 
Neither spoke. Neither made in advance a 
sign of greeting. When they were a few 
yards apart she paused, flushing through 
her whiteness ; and he, dropping his hat 
from his hand, stepped quickly forward, 
gathered her hands into his and stood look- 
ing down on her in silence. He was very 
pale and barely controlled himself. 

‘‘ Isabel ! It was all he could say. 

“ Rowan ! ” she answered at length. She 
spoke under her breath and stood before 
him with her head drooping, her eyes on the 
ground. Then he released her and she led 
the way at once out of the garden. 

When they had reached the front of the 
house, sounds of conversation on the veranda 


The Mettle of the Pasture 1 1 

warned them that there were guests, and 
without concealing their desire to be alone 
they passed to a rustic bench under one of 
the old trees, standing between the house and 
the street ; they were used to sitting there ; 
they had known each other all their lives. 

A long time they forced themselves to 
talk of common and trivial things, the one 
great meaning of the hour being avoided by 
each. Meanwhile it was growing very late. 
The children had long before returned drow- 
sily home held by the hand, their lanterns 
dropped on the way or still clung to, torn 
and darkened. No groups laughed on the 
verandas ; but gas-jets had been lighted and 
turned low as people undressed for bed. 
The guests of the family had gone. Even 
Isabel's grandmother had not been able 
further to put away sleep from her plotting 
brain in order to send out to them a final 
inquisitive thought — the last reconnoitring 
bee of all the in-gathered hive. Now, at 
length, as absolutely as he could have wished, 
he was alone with her and secure from inter- 
ruption. 


12 


The Mettle of the Pasture 

The moon had sunk so low that its rays 
fell in a silvery stream on her white figure ; 
only a waving bough of the tree overhead 
still brushed with shadow her neck and face. 
As the evening waned, she had less to say to 
him, growing always more silent in new dig- 
nity, more mute with happiness. 

He pushed himself abruptly away from 
her side and bending over touched his lips 
reverently to the back of one of her hands, 
as they lay on the shawl in her lap. 

‘‘ Isabel,** and then he hesitated. 

‘^Yes,** she answered sweetly. She paused 
likewise, requiring nothing more ; it was 
enough that he should speak her name. 

He changed his position and sat looking 
ahead. Presently he began again, choosing 
his words as a man might search among ter- 
rible weapons for the least deadly. 

“ When I wrote and asked you to marry 
me, I said I should come to-night and re- 
ceive your answer from your own lips. If 
your answer had been different, I should 
never have spoken to you of my past. It 
would not have been my duty. I should 


The Mettle of the Pasture 1 3 

not have had the right. I repeat, Isabel, 
that until you had confessed your love for 
me, I should have had no right to speak to 
you about my past. But now there is some- 
thing you ought to be told at once.*' 

She glanced up quickly with a rebuking 
smile. How could he wander so far from 
the happiness of moments too soon to end ? 
What was his past to her ? 

He went on more guardedly. 

Ever since 1 have loved you, I have re- 
alized what I should have to tell you if you 
ever returned my love. Sometimes duty 
has seemed one thing, sometimes another. 
This is why I have waited so long — more 
than two years ; the way was not clear. 
Isabel, it will never be clear. I believe now 
it is wrong to tell you ; I believe it is wrong 
not to tell you. I have thought and thought 
— it is wrong either way. But the least 
wrong to you and to myself — that is what I 
have always tried to see, and as I understand 
my duty, now that you are willing to unite 
your life with mine, there is something you 
must know." 


14 The Mettle of the Pasture 

He added the last words as though he 
had reached a difficult position and were an- 
nouncing his purpose to hold it. But he 
paused gloomily again. 

She had scarcely heard him through won- 
derment that he could so change at such a 
moment. Her happiness began to falter and 
darken like departing sunbeams. She re- 
mained for a space uncertain of herself, 
knowing neither what was needed nor what 
was best ; then she spoke with resolute depre- 
cation ; 

Why discuss with me your past life ? 
Have I not known you always ? ” 

These were not the words of girlhood. 
She spoke from the emotions of womanhood, 
beginning to-night in the plighting of her 
troth. 

“ You have trusted me too much, Isabel.” 

Repulsed a second time, she now fixed her 
large eyes upon him with surprise. The next 
moment she had crossed lightly once more 
the widening chasm. 

Rowan,” she said more gravely and with 
slight reproach, “ I have not waited so long 


The Mettle of the Pasture 15 

and then not known the man whom I have 
chosen/' 

‘‘ Ah," he cried, with a gesture of distress. 

Thus they sat: she silent with new thoughts; 
he speechless with his old ones. Again she 
was the first to speak. More deeply moved 
by the sight of his increasing excitement, 
she took one of his hands into both of hers, 
pressing it with a delicate tenderness. 

“ What is it that troubles you. Rowan ? 
Tell me ! It is my duty to listen. I have 
the right to know." 

He shrank from what he had never heard 
in her voice before — disappointment in him. 
And it was neither girlhood nor womanhood 
which had spoken now : it was comradeship 
which is possible to girlhood and to woman- 
hood through wifehood alone : she was tak- 
ing their future for granted. He caught her 
hand and lifted it again and again to his 
lips ; then he turned away from her. 

Thus shut out from him again, she sat 
looking out into the night. 

But in a woman's complete love of a man 
there is something deeper than girlhood or 


1 6 The Mettle of the Pasture 

womanhood or wifehood : it is the mater- 
nal — that dependence on his strength when 
he is well and strong, that passion of protec- 
tion and defence when he is frail or stricken. 
Into her mood and feeling toward him even 
the maternal had forced its way. She would 
have found some expression for it but he 
anticipated her. 

‘‘ I am thinking of you, of my duty to 
you, of your happiness.” 

She realized at last some terrible hidden im- 
port in all that he had been trying to confess. 
A shrouded mysterious Shape of Evil was 
suddenly disclosed as already standing on the 
threshold of the House of Life which they 
were about to enter together. The night 
being warm, she had not used her shawl. 
Now she threw it over her head and gathered 
the weblike folds tightly under her throat as 
though she were growing cold. The next 
instant, with a swift movement, she tore it 
from her head and pushed herself as far as 
possible away from him out into the moon- 
light ; and she sat there looking at him, wild 
with distrust and fear. 


The Mettle of the Pasture ij 

He caught sight of her face. 

“ Oh, I am doing wrong,** he cried miser- 
ably. “ I must not tell you this ! ** 

He sprang up and hurried over to the 
pavement and began to walk to and fro. 
He walked to and fro a long time ; and after 
waiting for him to return, she came quickly 
and stood in his path. But when he drew 
near her he put out his hand. 

‘‘ I cannot ! ** he repeated, shaking his 
head and turning away. 

Still she waited, and when he approached and 
was turning away again, she stepped forward 
and laid on his arm her quivering finger-tips. 

“ You must,** she said. ‘‘ You shall tell 
me ! ’* and if there was anger in her voice, if 
there was anguish in it, there was the author- 
ity likewise of holy and sovereign rights. 
But he thrust her all but rudely away, and 
going to the lower end of the pavement, 
walked there backward and forward with his 
hat pulled low over his eyes — walked slowly, 
always more slowly. Twice he laid his hand 
on the gate as though he would have passed 
out. At last he stopped and looked back to 


1 8 The Mettle of the Pasture 

where she waited in the light, her face set 
immovably, commandingly, toward him. 
Then he came back and stood before her. 

The moon, now sinking low, shone full 
on his face, pale, sad, very quiet; and into 
his eyes, mournful as she had never known 
any eyes to be. He had taken off his hat 
and held it in his hand, and a light wind 
blew his thick hair about his forehead and 
temples. She, looking at him with senses 
preternaturally aroused, afterwards remem- 
bered all this. 

Before he began to speak he saw rush 
over her face a look of final entreaty that he 
would not strike her too cruel a blow. This, 
when he had ceased speaking, was succeeded 
by the expression of one who has received a 
shock beyond all imagination. Thus they 
stood looking into each other's eyes ; then 
she shrank back and started toward the 
house. 

He sprang after her. 

“You are leaving me ! " he cried horribly. 

She walked straight on, neither quicken- 
ing nor slackening her pace nor swerving. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 19 

although his body began unsteadily to inter- 
cept hers. 

He kept beside her. 

‘‘ Don't ! Isabel ! " he prayed out of his 
agony. Don't leave me like this — ! " 

She walked on and reached the steps of 
the veranda. Crying out in his longing he 
threw his arms around her and held her 
close. 

‘‘You must not! You shall not! Do 
you know what you are doing, Isabel ? ” 

She made not the least reply, not the least 
effort to extricate herself. But she closed 
her eyes and shuddered and twisted her body 
away from him as a bird of the air bends its 
neck and head as far as possible from a re- 
pulsive captor ; and like the heart of such a 
bird, he could feel the throbbing of her heart. 

Her mute submission to his violence stung 
him : he let her go. She spread out her 
arms as though in a rising flight of her 
nature and the shawl, tossed backward from 
her shoulders, fell to the ground : it was as 
if she cast off the garment he had touched. 
Then she went quickly up the steps. Before 


20 


The Mettle of the Pasture 

she could reach the door he confronted her 
again ; he pressed his back against it. She 
stretched out her hand and rang the bell. 
He stepped aside very quickly — proudly. 
She entered, closing and locking noiselessly 
the door that no sound might reach the ser- 
vant she had summoned. As she did so she 
heard him try the knob and call to her in an 
undertone of last reproach and last entreaty : 

Isabel I — Isabel I — Isabel ! 

Hurrying through the hall, she ran silently 
up the stairs to her room and shut herself in. 

Her first feeling was joy that she was 
there safe from him and from every one else 
for the night. Her instant need was to be 
alone. It was this feeling also that caused 
her to go on tiptoe around the room and 
draw down the blinds, as though the glim- 
mering windows were large eyes peering at 
her with intrusive wounding stare. Then 
taking her position close to a front window, 
she listened. He was walking slowly back- 
ward and forward on the pavement reluc- 
tantly, doubtfully ; finally he passed through 
the gate. As it clanged heavily behind him, 


21 


The Mettle of the Pasture 

Isabel pressed her hands convulsively to her 
heart as though it also had gates which had 
closed, never to reopen. 

Then she lighted the gas-jets beside the 
bureau and when she caught sight of her- 
self the thought came how unchanged she 
looked. She stood there, just as she had 
stood before going down to supper, no- 
where a sign of all the deep displacement 
and destruction that had gone on within. 

But she said to herself that what he had 
told her would reveal itself in time. It 
would lie in the first furrows deepening down 
her cheeks ; it would be the earliest frost of 
years upon her hair. 

A long while she sat on the edge of the 
couch in the middle of the room under the 
brilliant gaslight, her hands forgotten in her 
lap, her brows arched high, her eyes on the 
floor. Then her head beginning to ache, 
a new sensation for her, she thought she 
should bind a wet handkerchief to it as she 
had often done for her aunt ; but the water 
which the maid had placed in the room had 
become warm. She must go down to the 


22 


Mettle of the Pasture 

ewer in the hall. As she did so, she recol- 
lected her shawl. 

It was lying on the wet grass where it had 
fallen. There was a half-framed accusing 
thought that he might have gone for it; but she 
put the thought away : the time had passed for 
courtesies from him. When she stooped for the 
shawl, an owl flew viciously at her, snapping its 
bill close to her face and stirring the air with its 
wings. U nnerved, she ran back into the porch, 
but stopped there ashamed and looking kindly 
toward the tree in which it made its home. 

An old vine of darkest green had wreathed 
itself about the pillars of the veranda on that 
side ; and it was at a frame-like opening in the 
massive foliage of this that the upper part of 
her pure white figure now stood revealed in 
the last low, silvery, mystical light. The sink- 
ing of the moon was like a great death on the 
horizon, leaving the pall of darkness, the void 
of infinite loss. 

She hung upon this far spectacle of nature 
with sad intensity, figuring from it some coun- 
terpart of the tragedy taking place within her 
own mind. 


II 


Isabel slept soundly, the regular habit of 
healthy years being too firmly entrenched to 
give way at once. Meanwhile deep changes 
were wrought out in her. 

When we fall asleep, we do not lay aside 
the thoughts of the day, as the hand its phys- 
ical work ; nor upon awakening return to 
the activity of these as it to the renewal of 
its toil, finding them undisturbed. Our 
most piercing insight yields no deeper con- 
ception of life than that of perpetual build- 
ing and unbuilding ; and during what we 
call our rest, it is often most active in exe- 
cuting its inscrutable will. All along the 
dark chimneys of the brain, clinging like 
myriads of swallows deep-buried and slum- 
brous in quiet and in soot, are the countless 
thoughts which lately winged the wide heaven 
of conscious day. Alike through dreaming 
and through dreamless hours Life moves 
among these, handling and considering each 
23 , 


24 


The Mettle of the Pasture 

of the unreckonable multitude ; and when 
morning light strikes the dark chimneys 
again and they rush forth, some that en- 
tered young have matured ; some of the old 
have become infirm ; many of which have 
dropped in singly issue as companies ; and 
young broods flutter forth, unaccountable 
nestlings of a night, which were not in yes- 
terday's blue at all. Then there are the 
missing — those that went in with the rest 
at nightfall but were struck from the walls 
forever. So all are altered, for while we have 
slept we have still been subject to that on- 
moving energy of the world which inces- 
santly renews us yet transmutes us — double 
mystery of our permanence and our change. 

It was thus that nature dealt with Isabel 
on this night : hours of swift difficult transi- 
tion from her former life to that upon which 
she was now to enter. She fell asleep over- 
whelmed amid the ruins of the old ; she 
awoke already engaged with the duties of 
the new. At sundown she was a girl who 
had never confessed her love ; at sunrise she 
was a woman who had discarded the man 


The Mettle of the Pasture 25 

she had just accepted. Rising at once and 
dressing with despatch, she entered upon 
preparations for completing her spiritual sepa- 
ration from Rowan in every material way. 

The books he had lent her — these she 
made ready to return this morning. Other 
things, also, trifles in themselves but until 
now so freighted with significance. Then 
his letters and notes, how many, how many 
they were ! Thus ever about her rooms she 
moved on this mournful occupation until 
the last thing had been disposed of as either 
to be sent back or to be destroyed. 

And then while Isabel waited for breakfast 
to be announced, always she was realizing 
how familiar seemed Rowan’s terrible con- 
fession, already lying far from her across 
the fields of memory — with a path worn 
deep between it and herself as though she 
had been traversing the distance for years ; 
so old can sorrow grow during a little sleep. 

When she went down they were seated as 
she had left them the evening before, grand- 
mother, aunt, cousin ; and they looked up 
with the same pride and fondness. But 


26 


The Mettle of the Pasture 

affection has so different a quality in the 
morning. Then the full soundless tides 
which come in at nightfall have receded; 
and in their stead is the glittering beach 
with thin waves that give no rest to the ear 
or to the shore — thin noisy edge of the 
deeps of the soul. 

This fresh morning mood now ruled them ; 
no such wholesome relief had come to her. 
So that their laughter and high spirits jarred 
upon her strangely. She had said to herself 
upon leaving them the evening before that 
never again could they be the same to her or 
she the same to them. But then she had ex- 
pected to return isolated by incommunicable 
happiness ; now she had returned isolated 
by incommunicable grief. Nevertheless she 
glided into her seat with feigned cheerfulness, 
taking a natural part in their conversation ; 
and she rose at last, smiling with the rest. 

But she immediately quitted the house, 
eager to be out of doors surrounded by 
things that she loved but that could not 
observe her or question her in return — alone 
with things that know not evil. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 27 

These were the last days of May. The 
rush of Summer had already carried it far 
northward over the boundaries of Spring, 
and on this Sunday morning it filled the 
grounds of Isabel's home with early warmth. 
Quickened by the heat, summoned by the 
blue, drenched with showers and dews, all 
things which have been made repositories of 
the great presence of Life were engaged in 
realizing the utmost that it meant to them. 

It was in the midst of this splendor of 
light and air, fragrance, colors, shapes, move- 
ments, melodies and joys that Isabel, the 
loftiest receptacle of life among them all, 
soon sat in a secluded spot, motionless and 
listless with her unstanched and desperate 
wound. Everything seemed happy but her- 
self ; the very brilliancy of the day only 
deepened the shadow under which she 
brooded. As she had slipped away from the 
house, she would soon have escaped from the 
garden had there been any further retreat. 

It was not necessary long to wait for one. 
Borne across the brown roofs and red chim- 
neys of the town and exploding in the crystal 


28 The Mettle of the Pasture 

air above her head like balls of mellow 
music, came the sounds of the first church 
bells, the bells of Christ Church. 

They had never conveyed other meaning to 
her than that proclaimed by the town clock : 
they sounded the hour. She had been too 
untroubled during her young life to under- 
stand their aged argument and invitation. 

Held in the arms of her father, when a babe, 
she had been duly christened. His death had 
occurred soon afterwards, then her mother's. 
Under the nurture of a grandmother to whom 
religion was a convenience and social form, 
she had received the strictest ceremonial but 
in no wise any spiritual training. The 
first conscious awakening of this beautiful 
unearthly sense had not taken place until 
the night of her confirmation — a wet April 
evening when the early green of the earth 
was bowed to the ground, and the lilies-of- 
the-valley in the yard had chilled her fingers 
as she had plucked them (chosen flower of 
her consecration) ; she and they but rising 
alike into their higher lives out of the same 
mysterious Mother. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 29 

That night she had knelt among the 
others at the chancel and the bishop who 
had been a friend of her father's, having 
approached her in the long line of young 
and old, had laid his hands the more softly 
for his memories upon her brow with the 
impersonal prayer : 

Defend^ O Lordy this thy child with thy 
heavenly grace y that she may continue thine for- 
ever y and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit 
more and morey until she come unto thy Ever- 
lasting Kingdom T 

For days afterwards a steady radiance 
seemed to Isabel to rest upon her wherever 
she went, shed straight from Eternity. She 
had avoided her grandmother, secluded her- 
self from the closest companions, been very 
thoughtful. 

Years had elapsed since. But no experi- 
ence of the soul is ever wasted or effaceable ; 
and as the sound of the bells now reached 
her across the garden, they reawoke the spirit- 
ual impulses which had stirred within her at 
confirmation. First heard whispering then, 
the sacred annunciation now more eloquently 


30 The Mettle of the Pasture 

urged that in her church, the hour of real 
need being come, she would find refuge, 
help, more than earthly counsellor. 

She returned unobserved to the house 
and after quick simple preparation, was on 
her way. 

When she slipped shrinkingly into her 
pew, scarce any one had arrived. Several 
women in mourning were there and two or 
three aged men. It is the sorrowful and 
the old who head the human host in its 
march toward Paradise : Youth and Hap- 
piness loiter far behind and are satisfied with 
the earth. Isabel looked around with a poig- 
nant realization of the broken company over 
into which she had so swiftly crossed. 

She had never before been in the church 
when it was empty. How hushed and solemn 
it waited in its noonday twilight — the Divine 
already there, faithful keeper of the ancient 
compact ; the human not yet arrived. Here 
indeed was the refuge she had craved ; here 
the wounded eye of the soul could open 
unhurt and unafraid ; and she sank to her 
knees with a quick prayer of the heart, scarce 


The Mettle of the Pasture 31 

of the lips, for Isabel knew nothing about 
prayer in her own words — that she might 
have peace of mind during these guarded 
hours : there would be so much time after- 
wards in which to remember — so many 
years in which to remember ! 

How still it was ! At first she started at 
every sound: the barely audible opening 
and shutting of a pew door by some careful 
hand ; the grating of wheels on the cobble- 
stones outside as a carriage was driven to the 
entrance ; the love-calls of sparrows building 
in the climbing oak around the Gothic win- 
dows. 

Soon, however, her ear became sealed to 
all outward disturbance. She had fled to the 
church, driven by many young impulses, but 
among them was the keen hope that her 
new Sorrow, which had begun to follow her 
everywhere since she awoke, would wait out- 
side when she entered those doors : so dark 
a spirit would surely not stalk behind her 
into the very splendor of the Spotless. But 
as she now let her eyes wander down the 
aisle to the chancel railing where she had 


32 The Mettle of the Pasture 

knelt at confirmation, where bridal couples 
knelt in receiving the benediction, Isabel felt 
that this^ new Care faced her from there as from 
its appointed shrine ; she even fancied that in 
effect it addressed to her a solemn warning : 

Isabel, think not to escape me in this 
place ! It is here that Rowan must seem to 
you most unworthy and most false ; to have 
wronged you most cruelly. For it was here, 
at this altar, that you had expected to kneel 
beside him and be blessed in your marriage. 
In years to come, sitting where you now sit, 
you may live to see him kneel here with 
another, making her his wife. But for you, 
Isabel, this spot must ever mean the renun- 
ciation of marriage, the bier of love. Then 
do not think to escape me here, me, who am 
Remembrance.” 

And Isabel, as though a command had 
been laid upon her, with her eyes fixed on 
the altar over which the lights of the stained 
glass windows were joyously playing, gave 
herself up to memories of all the innocent 
years that she had known Rowan and of the 
blind years that she had loved him. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 33 

She was not herself aware that marriage 
was the only sacrament of religion that had 
ever possessed interest for her. Recollection 
told her no story of how even as a child she 
had liked to go to the crowded church with 
other children and watch the procession of 
the brides — all mysterious under their white 
veils, and following one and another so closely 
during springs and autumns that in truth 
they were almost a procession. Or with what 
excitement she had watched each walk out, 
leaning on the arm of the man she had 
chosen and henceforth to be called his in 
all things to the end while the loud crash 
of the wedding march closed their separate 
pasts with a single melody. 

But there were mothers in the church 
who, attracted by the child’s expression, 
would say to each other a little sadly per- 
haps, that love and marriage, were destined 
to be the one overshadowing or overshin- 
ing experience in life to this most human 
and poetic soul. 

After she had learned of Rowan’s love for 
her and had begun to return his love, the altar 

D 


34 Mettle of the Pasture 

had thenceforth become the more personal 
symbol of their destined happiness. Every 
marriage that she witnessed bound her more 
sacredly to him. Only a few months before 
this, at the wedding of the Osborns — Kate 
being her closest friend, and George Osborn 
being Rowan’s — he and she had been the 
only attendants ; and she knew how many per- 
sons in the church were thinking that they 
might be the next to plight their vows ; with 
crimsoning cheeks she had thought it herself. 

Now there returned before Isabel’s eyes 
the once radiant procession of the brides — 
but how changed ! And bitter questioning 
she addressed to each ! Had any such con- 
fession been made to any one of them — 
either before marriage or afterwards — by 
the man she had loved ? Was it for some 
such reason that one had been content to 
fold her hands over her breast before the 
birth of her child? Was this why another 
lived on, sad young wife, motherless ? Was 
this why in the town there were women who 
refused to marry at all? So does a little 
knowledge of evil move backward and 


The Mettle of the Pasture 35 

darken for us even the bright years in which 
it had no place. 

The congregation were assembling rapidly. 
Among those who passed further down were 
several of the girls of Isabel's set. How fresh 
and sweet they looked as they drifted grace- 
fully down the aisles this summer morning ! 
How light-hearted ! How far away from her 
in her new wretchedness ! Some, after they 
were seated, glanced back with a smile. She 
avoided their eyes. 

A little later the Osborns entered, the 
bride and groom of a few months before. 
Their pew was immediately in front of hers. 
Kate wore mourning for her mother. As 
she seated herself, she lifted her veil halfway, 
turned and slipped a hand over the pew into 
Isabel’s. The tremulous pressure of the 
fingers spoke of present trouble ; and as 
Isabel returned it with a quick response of 
her own, a tear fell from the hidden eyes. 

The young groom’s eyes were also red and 
swollen, but for other reasons ; and he sat 
in the opposite end of the pew as far as pos- 
sible from his wife’s side. When she a few 


36 The Mettle of the Pasture 

moments later leaned toward him with 
timidity and hesitation, offering him an 
open prayer-book, he took it coldly and laid 
it between them on the cushion. Isabel 
shuddered: her new knowledge of evil so 
cruelly opened her eyes to the full under- 
standing of so much. 

Little time was left for sympathy with 
Kate. Nearer the pulpit was another pew 
from which her thoughts had never been 
wholly withdrawn. She had watched it with 
the fascination of abhorrence ; and once, feel- 
ing that she could not bear to see him come 
in with his mother and younger brother, she 
had started to leave the church. But just 
then her grandmother had bustled richly in, 
followed by her aunt; and more powerful with 
Isabel already than any other feeling was the 
wish to bury her secret — Rowan’s secret — 
in the deepest vault of consciousness, to seal it 
up forever from the knowledge of the world. 

The next moment what she so dreaded 
took place. He walked quietly down the 
aisle as usual, opened the pew for his 
mother and brother with the same cour- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 37 

tesy, and the three bent their heads to- 
gether in prayer. 

“ Grandmother/' she whispered quickly, 
will you let me pass ! I am not very well, 
I think I shall go home." 

Her grandmother, not heeding and with 
her eyes fixed upon the same pew, whispered 
in return : 

“ The Merediths are here," and continued 
her satisfying scrutiny of persons seated 
around. 

Isabel herself had no sooner suffered the 
words to escape than she regretted them. 
Resolved to control herself from this time 
on, she unclasped her prayer-book, found 
the appointed reading, and directed her 
thoughts to the service soon to begin. 

It was part of the confession of David that 
reached her, sounding across how many cen- 
turies. Wrung from him who had been a 
young man himself and knew what a young 
man is. With time enough afterwards to 
think of this as soldier, priest, prophet, care- 
worn king, and fallible judge over men — 
with time enough to think of what his days 


38 The Mettle of the Pasture 

of nature had been when he tended sheep 
grazing the pastures of Bethlehem or abided 
solitary with the flock by night, lowly de- 
spised work, under the herded stars. Thus 
converting a young man’s memories into an 
older man’s remorses. 

As she began to read, the first outcry 
gripped and cramped her heart like physical 
pain ; where all her life she had been repeat- 
ing mere words, she now with eyes tragically 
opened discerned forbidden meanings : 

Thou art about my path and about my bed 
. . . the darkness is no darkness to thee, , . . 
Thine eyes did see my substance being yet imper- 
fect , . . look well if there be any wickedness 
in me ; and lead me in the way everlasting . . . 
haste thee unto me ,, , when I cry unto thee, 
O let not my heart be inclined to an evil 
thingT 

She was startled by a general movement 
throughout thfe congregation. The minister 
had advanced to the reading desk and begun 
to read : 

“ I will arise and go to my father and will 
say unto him: Father^ 1 have sinned against 


The Mettle of the Pasture 39 

heaven and before thee and am no more worthy 
to he called thy sonT 

Ages stretched their human wastes be- 
tween these words of the New Testament 
and those other words of the Old; but the 
parable of Christ really finished the prayer 
of David : in each there was the same young 
prodigal — the ever-falling youth of humanity. 

Another moment and the whole congrega- 
tion knelt and began the confession. Isabel 
also from long custom sank upon her knees 
and started to repeat the words, ^^We have 
erred and strayed from thy ways like lost 
sheep y Then she stopped. She declined 
to make that confession with Rowan or to 
join in any service that he shared and appro- 
priated. 

The Commandments now remained and for 
the first time she shrank from them as being 
so awful and so near. All our lives we plac- 
idly say over to ourselves that man is mortal ; 
but not until death knocks at the threshold 
and enters do we realize the terrors of our 
mortality. All our lives we repeat with dull 
indifference that man is erring; but only 


40 The Mettle of the Pasture 

when the soul most loved and trusted has 
gone astray, do we begin to realize the trag- 
edy of human imperfection. So Isabel had 
been used to go through the service, with 
bowed head murmuring at each response, 
“ Lord have mercy upon us and incline our 
hearts to keep this lawT 

But the laws themselves had been no more 
to her than pious archaic statements, as far 
removed as the cherubim, the candlesticks 
and the cedar of Solomon’s temple. If her 
thoughts had been forced to the subject, 
she would have perhaps admitted the ne- 
cessity of these rules for men and women 
ages ago. Some one of them might have 
meant much to a girl in those dim days : 
to Rebecca pondering who knows what 
temptation at the well ; to Ruth tempted 
who knows how in the corn and thinking 
of Boaz and the barn; to Judith plotting in 
the camp; to Jephtha’s daughter out on the 
wailing mountains. 

But to-day, sitting in an Episcopal church 
in the closing years of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, holding a copy of those old laws, and 


The Mettle of the Pasture 41 

thinking of Rowan as the breaker of the great- 
est of them, Isabel for the first time awoke to 
realization of how close they are still — those 
voices from the far land of Shinar ; ho^ all 
the men and women around her in that church 
still waged their moral battles over those few 
texts of righteousness ; how the sad and sub- 
lime wandering caravans of the whole race 
forever pitch their nightly tents beneath that 
same mountain of command. 

Thick and low sounded the response of 
the worshippers. She could hear her grand- 
mother’s sonorous voice, a mingling of 
worldly triumph and indifference ; her aunt’s 
plaintive and aggrieved. She could hear 
Kate’s needy and wounded. In imagination 
she could hear his proud, noble mother’s ; 
his younger brother’s. Against the sound 
of his responses she closed all hearing ; and 
there low on her knees, in the ear of Heaven 
itself, she recorded against him her unfor- 
giveness and her dismissal forever. 

An organ melody followed, thrillingly 
sweet ; and borne outward on it the beseech- 
ing of the A 11- Merciful : 


42 The Mettle of the Pasture 

“‘Art thou weary, art thou languid. 

Art thou sore distressed ? 

Come to me ! ’ saith one ; ‘and, coming. 

Be at rest I* ” 

It was this hymn that brought her in a 
passion to her feet. 

With whatsoever other feelings she had 
sought the church, it was at least with the 
hope that it had a message for her. She had 
indeed listened to a personal message, but it 
was a message delivered to the wrong per- 
son ; for at every stage of the worship she, 
th€ innocent, had been forgotten and slighted; 
Rowan, the guilty, had been considered and 
comforted. David had his like in mind and 
besought pardon for him ; the prophet of 
old knew of a case like his and blessed him ; 
the apostle centuries afterward looked on 
and did not condemn ; Christ himself had in 
a way told the multitude the same story that 
Rowan had told her, — counselling forgive- 
ness. The very hymns of the church were 
on Rowan's side — every one gone in search 
of the wanderer. For on this day Religion, 
universal mother of needy souls and a minis- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 43 

ter of all comforts, was in the mood to deal 
only with youth and human frailty. 

She rebelled. It was like commanding her 
to dishonor a woman’s strongest and purest 
instincts. It called upon her to sympathize 
with the evil that had blighted her life. And 
Rowan himself! — in her anger and suffering 
she could think of him in no other way than 
as enjoying this immortal chorus of anxiety on 
his account; as hearing it all with complacency 
and self-approval. It had to her distorted im- 
agination the effect of offering a reward to him 
for having sinned; he would have received no 
such attention had he remained innocent. 

With one act of complete revulsion she 
spurned it all : the moral casuistry that be- 
guiled him, the church that cloaked him ; 
spurned psalm and prophet and apostle, 
Christ and parable and song. 

Grandmother,” she whispered, “ I shall 
not wait for the sermon.” 

A moment later she issued from the church 
doors and took her way slowly homeward 
through the deserted streets, under the lonely 
blue of the unanswering sky. 


Ill 


The Conyers homestead was situated in 
a quiet street on the southern edge of the 
town. All the houses in that block had 
been built by people of English descent 
near the close of the eighteenth or at the 
beginning of the nineteenth century. Each 
was set apart from each by lawns, yards and 
gardens, and further screened by shrubs and 
vines in accordance with old English custom. 
Where they grew had once been the heart 
of a wilderness ; and above each house stood 
a few old forest trees, indifferent guardsmen 
of the camping generations. 

The architects had given to the buildings 
good strong characters ; the family living in 
each for a hundred years or more had long 
since imparted reputation. Out of the win- 
dows girlish brides had looked on reddening 
springs and whitening winters until they had 
become silver-haired grandmothers them- 
selves ; then had looked no more ; and suc- 
ceeding eyes had watched the swift pageants 

44 


The Mettle of the Pasture 45 

of the earth, and the swifter pageants of 
mortal hope and passion. Out of the front 
doors, sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons 
had gone away to the cotton and sugar and 
rice plantations of the South, to new farm 
lands of the West, to the professions in cities 
of the North. The mirrors within held long 
vistas of wavering forms and vanishing faces ; 
against the walls of the rooms had beaten 
unremembered tides of strong and of gentle 
voices. In the parlors what scenes of lights 
and music, sheen of satins, flashing of gems ; 
in the dining rooms what feastings as in hale 
England, with all the robust humors of the 
warm land, of the warm heart. 

Near the middle of the block and shaded 
by forest trees, stood with its heirlooms and 
treasures the home of Isabel’s grandmother. 
Known to be heiress to this though rich in 
her own right was Isabel herself, that grand- 
mother’s idol, the only one of its beautiful 
women remaining yet to be married ; and to 
celebrate with magnificence in this house 
Isabel’s marriage to Rowan Meredith had 
long been planned by the grandmother as 


46 The Mettle of the Pasture 

the last scene of her own splendid social 
drama : having achieved that, she felt she 
should be willing to retire from the stage — 
and to play only behind the curtain. 

It was the middle of the afternoon of the 
same Sunday. In the parlors extending 
along the eastern side of the house there 
was ,a single sound : the audible but health- 
ful breathing of a sleeper lying on a sofa in 
the coolest corner. It was Isabel's grand- 
mother nearing the end of her customary nap. 

Sometimes there are households in which 
two members suggest the single canvas of a 
mediaeval painter, depicting scenes that rep- 
resent a higher and a lower world : above 
may be peaks, clouds, sublimity, the Trans- 
figuration ; underneath, the pursuits and pas- 
sions of local worldly life — some story of 
loaves and fishes and of a being possessed by 
a devil. Isabel and her grandmother were 
related as parts of some such painting : the 
grandmother was the bottom of the canvas. 

In a little while she awoke and uncoiling 
her figure, rolled softly over on her back 
and stretched like some drowsy feline of the 


The Mettle of the Pasture 47 

jungle ; then sitting up with lithe grace she 
looked down at the print of her head on the 
pillow and deftly smoothed it out. The 
action was characteristic : she was careful to 
hide the traces of her behavior, and the habit 
was so strong that it extended to things as 
innocent as slumber. Letting her hands drop 
to the sofa, she yawned and shook her head 
from side to side with that short laugh by 
which we express amusement at our own 
comfort and well-being. 

Beside the sofa, toe by toe and heel by 
heel, sat her slippers — the pads of this 
leopardess of the parlors. She peered over 
and worked her nimble feet into these. On 
a little table at the end of the sofa lay her 
glasses, her fan, and a small bell. She passed 
her fingers along her temples in search of 
small disorders in the scant tufts of her hair, 
put on her glasses, and took the fan. Then 
she glided across the room to one of the 
front windows, sat down and raised the blind 
a few inches in order to peep out: so the 
well-fed, well-fanged leopardess with lowered 
head gazes idly through the green leaves. 


48 The Mettle of the Pasture 

It was very hot. With her nostrils close 
to the opening in the shutters, she inhaled 
the heated air of the yard of drying grass. 
On the white window-sill just outside, a 
bronze wasp was whirling excitedly, that 
cautious stinger which never arrives until 
summer is sure. The oleanders in the big 
green tubs looked wilted though abundantly 
watered that morning. 

She shot a furtive glance at the doors and 
windows of the houses across the street. All 
were closed ; and she formed her own pic- 
tures of how people inside were sleeping, 
lounging, idly reading until evening coolness 
should invite them again to the verandas and 
the streets. 

No one passed but gay strolling negroes. 
She was seventy years old, but her interest 
in life was insatiable ; and it was in part, 
perhaps, the secret of her amazing vitality 
and youthfulness that her surroundings never 
bored her ; she derived instant pleasure from 
the nearest spectacle, always exercising her 
powers humorously upon the world, never 
upon herself. For lack of other entertain- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 49 

ment she now fell upon these vulnerable 
figures, and began to criticise and to laugh 
at them ; she did not have to descend far to 
reach this level. Her undimmed eyes swept 
everything — walk, imitative manners, imita- 
tive dress. 

Suddenly she withdrew her face from the 
blinds ; young Meredith had entered the 
gate and was coming up the pavement. If 
anything could greatly have increased her 
happiness at this moment it would have 
been the sight of him. He had been with 
Isabel until late the night before ; he had 
attended morning service and afterward gone 
home with his mother and brother (she had 
watched the carriage as it rolled away down 
the street) ; he had returned at this unusual 
hour. Such eagerness had her approval ; 
and coupling it with Isabel's demeanor upon 
leaving the table the previous evening, never 
before so radiant with love, she felt that she 
had ground for believing the final ambition 
of her life near its fulfilment. 

As he advanced, the worldly passions of her 
nature — the jungle passions — she had no 


50 The Mettle of the Pasture 

others — saluted him with enthusiasm. His 
head and neck and bearing, stature and 
figure, family and family history, house 
and lands — she inventoried them all once 
more and discovered no lack. When he 
had rung the bell, she leaned back in her 
chair and eavesdropped with sparkling eyes. 

Is Miss Conyers at home ? ** 

The maid replied apologetically : 

She wished to be excused to-day, Mr. 
Meredith.” 

A short silence followed. Then he spoke 
as a man long conscious of a peculiar footing : 

Will you tell her Mr. Meredith would 
like to see her,” and without waiting to be 
invited he walked into the library across the 
hall. 

She heard the maid go upstairs with hesi- 
tating step. 

Some time passed before she came down. 
She brought a note and handed it to him, 
saying with some embarrassment : 

“ She asked me to give you this note, Mr. 
Meredith.” 

Listening with sudden tenseness of atten- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 51 

tion, Mrs. Conyers heard him draw the 
sheet from the envelope and a moment later 
crush it. 

She placed her eyes against the shutters 
and watched him as he walked away ; then 
she leaned back in her chair, thoughtful and 
surprised. What was the meaning of this ? 
The events of the day were rapidly reviewed : 
that Isabel had not spoken with her after 
breakfast; that she had gone to service at 
an unusual hour and had left the church 
before the sermon ; that she had effaced 
herself at dinner and at once thereafter had 
gone up to her rooms, where she still 
remained. 

Returning to the sofa she lay down, hav- 
ing first rung her bell. When the maid 
appeared, she rubbed her eyelids and sat 
sleepily up as though just awakened : she 
remembered that she had eavesdropped, and 
the maid must be persuaded that she had 
not. Guilt is a bad logician. 

Where is your Miss Isabel ? 

“ She is in her room. Miss Henrietta.” 

‘‘ Go up and tell her that I say come down 


52 The Mettle of the Pasture 

into the parlors : it is cooler down here. 
And ask her whether she’d like some sher- 
bet. And bring me some — bring it before 
you go.” 

A few moments later the maid reentered 
with the sherbet. She lifted the cut-glass dish 
from the silver waiter with soft purrings of 
the palate, and began to attack the minute 
snow mountain around the base and up the 
sides with eager jabs and stabs, depositing 
the spoonfuls upon a tongue as fresh as a 
child’s. Momentarily she forgot even her 
annoyance ; food instantly absorbed and 
placated her as it does the carnivora. 

The maid reentered. 

“ She says she doesn’t wish any sherbet. 
Miss Henrietta.” 

Did she say she would come down ? ” 
She did not say. Miss Henrietta.” 

“ Go back and tell her Td like to see her : 
ask her to come down into the parlors.” 
Then she hurried back to the sherbet. She 
wanted her granddaughter, but she wanted 
that first. 

Her thoughts ascended meantime to Isabel 


The Mettle of the Pasture 53 

in the room above. She finished the sherbet. 
She waited. Impatience darkened to uneasi- 
ness and anger. Still she waited; and her 
finger nails began to scratch audibly at the 
mahogany of her chair and a light to burn 
in the tawny eyes. 

In the room overhead Isabel's thoughts 
all this time were descending to her grand- 
mother. Before the message was delivered 
it had been her intention to go down. Once 
she had even reached the head of the stair- 
case ; but then had faltered and shrunk 
back. When the message came, it rendered 
her less inclined to risk the interview. Com- 
ing at such an hour, that message was sus- 
picious. She, moreover, naturally had learned 
to dread her grandmother s words when they 
looked most innocent. Thus she, too, waited 
— lacking the resolution to descend. 

As she walked homeward from church 
she realized that she must take steps at once 
to discard Rowan as the duty of her social 
position. And here tangible perplexities 
instantly wove themselves across her path, 


54 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Conscience had promptly arraigned him at 
the altar of religion. It was easy to con- 
demn him there. And no one had the right 
to question that arraignment and that con- 
demnation. But public severance of all rela- 
tions with him in her social world — how 
should she accomplish that and withhold her 
justification ? 

Her own kindred would wish to under- 
stand the reason. The branches of these 
scattered far and near were prominent each 
in its sphere, and all were intimately bound 
together by the one passion of clannish al- 
legiance to the family past. She knew that 
Rowan's attentions had continued so long and 
had been so marked, that her grandmother had 
accepted marriage between them as a foregone 
conclusion, and in letters had disseminated 
these prophecies through the family connec- 
tion. Other letters had even come back to 
Isabel, containing evidence only too plain that 
Rowan had been discussed and accepted in 
domestic councils. Against all inward protests 
of delicacy, she had been forced to receive con- 
gratulations that in this marriage she would 


The Mettle of the Pasture 55 

preserve the traditions of the family by 
bringing into it a man of good blood and 
of unspotted name; the two idols of all the 
far separated hearthstones. 

To the pride of all these relatives she 
added her own pride — the highest. She 
was the last of the women in the direct line 
yet unwedded, and she was sensitive that 
her choice should not in honor and in worth 
fall short of the alliances that had preceded 
hers. Involved in this sense of pride she felt 
that she owed a duty to the generations who 
had borne her family name in this country 
and to the still earlier generations who had 
given it distinction in England — land of 
her womanly ideals. To discard now with- 
out a word of explanation the man whose suit 
she had long been understood to favor would 
create wide disappointment and provoke keen 
question. 

Further difficulties confronted her from 
Rowan's side. His own family and kin- 
dred were people strong and not to be trifled 
with, proud and conservative like her own. 
Corresponding resentments would be aroused 


56 The Mettle of the Pasture 

among them, questions would be asked that 
had no answers. She felt that her life in 
its most private and sacred relation would 
be publicly arraigned and have open judg- 
ment passed upon it by conflicting interests 
and passions — and that the mystery which 
contained her justification must also forever 
conceal it. 

Nevertheless Rowan must be discarded; 
she must act quickly and for the best. 

On the very threshold one painful neces- 
sity faced her : the reserve of years must be 
laid aside and her grandmother admitted to 
confidence in her plans. Anything that she 
might do could not escape those watchful 
eyes long since grown impatient. More- 
over despite differences of character, she and 
her grandmother had always lived together, 
and they must now stand together before 
their world in regard to this step. 

Did you wish to see me about anything, 
grandmother ? ” 

Mrs. Conyers had not heard Isabefs quiet 
entrance. She was at the window still : she 


The Mettle of the Pasture 57 

turned softly in her chair and looked across 
the darkened room to where Isabel sat fac- 
ing her — a barely discernible white figure. 

From any other member of her family she 
would roughly have demanded the explana- 
tion she desired. She was the mother of 
strong men (they were living far from her 
now), and even in his manhood no one of 
them had ever crossed her will without bear- 
ing away the scars of her anger, and always 
of her revenge. But before this grandchild, 
whom she had reared from infancy, she felt 
the brute cowardice which is often the only 
tribute that a debased nature can pay to the 
incorruptible. Her love must have its basis 
in some abject emotion : it took its origin 
from fear. 

An unforeseen incident, occurring when 
Isabel was yet a child and all but daily put- 
ting forth new growths of nature, rendered 
very clear even then the developing antago- 
nism and prospective relationship of these 
two characters. In a company of ladies the 
grandmother, drawing the conversation to 
herself, remarked with a suggestive laugh 


58 The Mettle of the Pasture 

that as there were no men present she would 
tell a certain story. “ Grandmother,” inter- 
posed Isabel, vaguely startled, please do not 
say anything that you would not say before 
a man;” and for an instant, amid the hush, 
the child and the woman looked at each other 
like two repellent intelligences, accidentally 
meeting out of the heavens and the pit. 

This had been the first of a long series of 
antagonism and recoils ; and as the child 
had matured, the purity and loftiness of her 
nature had by this very contact grown chilled 
toward austerity. Thus nature lends a grad- 
ual protective hardening to a tender surface 
during abrasion with a coarser thing. It left 
Isabel more reserved with her grandmother 
than with any one else of all the persons 
who entered into her life. 

For this reason Mrs. Conyers now fore- 
saw that this interview would be specially 
difficult. She had never enjoyed isabefs 
confidence in regard to her love affairs — 
and the girl had had her share of these; 
every attempt to gain it had been met by 
rebuffs so courteous but decisive that they 


The Mettle of the Pasture 59 

had always wounded her pride and some- 
times had lashed her to secret fury. 

“ Did you wish to see me about anything, 
grandmother ? ” 

The reply came very quickly : “ I wanted 
to know whether you were well.” 

“ I am perfectly well. Why did you 
think of asking ? ” 

‘‘You did not seem well in church.” 

“I had forgotten. I was not well in church.” 

Mrs. Conyers bent over and drew a chair 
in front of her own. She wished to watch 
Isabel’s face. She had been a close student 
of women’s faces — and of many men’s. 

“ Sit here. There is a breeze through the 
window.” 

“ Thank you. I’d rather sit here.” 

Another pause ensued. 

“ Did you ever know the last of May to 
be so hot ? ” 

“ I cannot remember now.” 

“ Can you imagine any one calling on 
such an afternoon ? ” 

There was no reply. 


6o The Mettle of the Pasture 

‘‘ I am glad no one has been here. While 
I was asleep I thought I heard the bell.'* 

There was no reply. 

You were wise not to stay for the ser- 
mon." Mrs. Conyers' voice trembled with 
anger as she passed on and on, seeking a pene- 
trable point for conversation. “ I do not be- 
lieve in using the church to teach young men 
that they should blame their fathers for their 
own misdeeds. If I have done any good in this 
world, I do not expect my father and mother 
to be rewarded for it in the next ; if I have 
done wrong, I do not expect my children to 
be punished. I shall claim the reward and 
I shall stand the punishment, and that is the 
end of it. Teaching young men to blame 
their parents because they are prodigals is 
nonsense, and injurious nonsense. I hope 
you do not imagine," she said, with a stroke 
of characteristic coarseness, that you get 
any of your faults from me." 

‘‘ I have never held you responsible, 
grandmother." 

Mrs. Conyers could wait no longer. 

‘‘ Isabel," she asked sharply, “ why did 


The Mettle of the Pasture 6i 

you not see Rowan when he called a few 
minutes ago ? ” 

Grandmother, you know that I do not 
answer such questions.” 

How often in years gone by such had been 
Isabel’s answer! The grandmother awaited 
it now. To her surprise Isabel after some 
moments of hesitation replied without resent- 
ment : 

I did not wish to see him.” 

There was a momentary pause ; then this 
unexpected weakness was met with a blow. 

You were eager enough to see him last 
night.” 

“ I can only hope,” murmured Isabel 
aloud though wholly to herself, ‘‘ that I did 
not make this plain to him.” 

But what has happened since ? ” 

Nothing was said for a while. The two 
women had been unable to see each other 
clearly. A moment later Isabel crossed the 
room quickly and taking the chair in front 
of her grandmother, searched that treacher- 
ous face imploringly for something better in 
it than she had ever seen there. Could she 


62 The Mettle of the Pasture 

trust the untrustworthy ? Would falseness 
itself for once be true ? ^ 

“ Grandmother/' she said, and her voice 
betrayed how she shrank from her own 
words, “ before you sent for me I was about 
to come down. I wished to speak with you 
about a very delicate matter, a very serious 
matter. You have often reproached me for 
not taking you into my confidence. I am 
going to give you my confidence now." 

At any other moment the distrust and 
indignity contained in the tone of this 
avowal would not have escaped Mrs. Con- 
yers. But surprise riveted her attention. 
Isabel gave her no time further : 

“ A thing has occurred in regard to which 
we must act together for our own sakes — 
on account of the servants in the house 
— on account of our friends, so that there 
may be no gossip, no scandal." 

Nothing at times so startles us as our 
own words. As the girl uttered the word 
“ scandal," she rose frightened as though 
it faced her and began to walk excitedly 
backward and forward. Scandal had never 


The Mettle of the Pasture 63 

touched her life. She had never talked 
scandal; had never thought scandal. Dwell- 
ing under the same roof with it as the mas- 
ter passion of a life and forced to encounter 
it in so many repulsive ways, she had needed 
little virtue to regard it with abhorrence. 

Now she perceived that it might be peril- 
ously near herself. When all questions were 
asked and no reasons were given, would not 
the seeds of gossip fly and sprout and bear 
their kinds about her path : and the truth 
could never be told. She must walk on 
through the years, possibly misjudged, giving 
no sign. 

After a while she returned to her seat. 

You must promise me one thing,” she 
said with white and trembling lips. I 
give you my confidence as far as I can ; 
beyond that I will not go. And you shall 
not ask. You are not to try to find out 
from me or any one else more than I tell 
you. You must give me your word of 
honor ! ” 

She bent forward and looked her grand- 
mother wretchedly in the eyes. 


64 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Mrs. Conyers pushed her chair back as 
though a hand had struck her rudely in the 
face. 

Isabel,” she cried, “ do you forget to 
whom you are speaking ? ” 

“ Ah, grandmother,” exclaimed Isabel, 
reckless of her words by reason of suffer- 
ing, ‘‘ it is too late for us to be sensitive 
about our characters.” 

Mrs. Conyers rose with insulted pride : 
“ Do not come to me with your confidence 
until you can give it.” 

Isabel recrossed the room and sank into the 
seat she had quitted. Mrs. Conyers remained 
standing a moment and furtively resumed hers. 

Whatever her failings had been — one 
might well say her crimes — Isabel had 
always treated her from the level of her 
own high nature. But Mrs. Conyers had 
accepted this dutiful demeanor of the years 
as a tribute to her own virtues. Now that 
Isabel, the one person whose respect she 
most desired, had openly avowed deep dis- 
trust of her, the shock was as real as any- 
thing life could have dealt. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 65 

She glanced narrowly at Isabel : the girl 
had forgotten her. 

Mrs. Conyers could shift as the wind 
shifts ; and one of her characteristic re- 
sources in life had been to conquer by feign- 
ing defeat: she often scaled her mountains 
by seeming to take a path which led to the 
valleys. She now crossed over and sat down 
with a peace-making laugh. She attempted 
to take Isabel's hand, but it was quickly with- 
drawn. Fearing that this movement indicated 
a receding confidence Mrs. Conyers ignored 
the rebuff and pressed her inquiry in a new, 
entirely practical, and pleasant tone : 

What is the meaning of all this, 
Isabel?" 

Isabel turned upon her again a silent, 
searching, wretched look of appeal. 

Mrs. Conyers realized that it could not 
be ignored: “You know that I promise any- 
thing. What did I ever refuse you ? " 

Isabel sat up but still remained silent. 
Mrs. Conyers noted the indecision and 
shrugged her shoulders with a careless dis- 
missal of the whole subject: 


66 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Let us drop the subject, then. Do you 
think it will rain ? 

Grandmother, Rowan must not come 
here any more.” Isabel stopped abruptly. 
“ That is all.” 

. . . “ I merely wanted you to understand 
this at once. We must not invite him here 
any more.” 

... ^‘ If we meet him at the houses of our 
friends, we must do what we can not to be 
discourteous to them if he is their guest.” 

... ‘‘ If we meet Rowan alone anywhere, 
we must let him know that he is not on the list 
of our acquaintances any longer. That is all.” 

Isabel wrung her hand.s. 

Mrs. Conyers had more than one of the 
traits of the jungle : she knew when to 
lie silent and how to wait. She waited 
longer now, but Isabel had relapsed into her 
own thoughts. For her the interview was at 
an end ; to Mrs. Conyers it was beginning. 
Isabel’s words and manner had revealed a situ- 
ation far more serious than she had believed 
to exist. A sense of personal slights and 
wounds gave way to apprehension. The 


The Mettle of the Pasture 67 

need of the moment was not passion and 
resentment, but tact and coolness and appar- 
ent unconcern. 

‘‘ What is the meaning of this, Isabel ? ” 
She spoke in a tone of frank and cordial 
interest as though the way were clear at last 
for the establishment of complete confidence 
between them. 

Grandmother, did you not give me your 
word?’’ said Isabel, sternly. Mrs. Conyers 
grew indignant : “ But remember in what a 
light you place me ! I did not expect you to 
require me to be unreasonable and unjust. 
Do you really wish me to be kept in the 
dark in a matter like this ? Must I refuse 
to speak to Rowan and have no reason ? 
Close the house to him and not know why ? 
Cut him in public without his having offended 
me ? If he should ask why I treat him in 
this way, what am I to tell him ? ” 

‘‘He will never ask,” said Isabel with 
mournful abstraction. 

“ But tell me why you wish me to act so 
strangely.” 

“ Believe that I have reasons.” 


68 The Mettle of the Pasture 

But ought I not to know what these 
reasons are if I must act upon them as 
though they were my own ? ” 

Isabel saw the stirrings of a mind that 
brushed away honor as an obstacle and that 
was not to be quieted until it had been satis- 
fied. She sank back into her chair, saying 
very simply with deep disappointment and 
with deeper sorrow : 

“ Ah, I might have known ! ** 

Mrs. Conyers pressed forward with gather- 
ing determination : 

“ What happened last night ? ” 

“ I might have known that it was of no 
use,” repeated Isabel. 

Mrs. Conyers waited several moments and 
then suddenly changing her course feigned 
the dismissal of the whole subject : I shall 
pay no attention to this. I shall continue to 
treat Rowan as I have always treated him.” 

Isabel started up : “ Grandmother, if you 
do, you will regret it.” Her voice rang 
clear with hidden meaning and with hidden 
warning. 

It fell upon the ear of the other with 


The Mettle of the Pasture 69 

threatening import. For her there seemed 
to be in it indeed the ruin of a cherished plan, 
the loss of years of hope and waiting. Be- 
fore such a possibility tact and coolness and 
apparent unconcern were swept away by pas- 
sion, brutal and unreckoning : “ Do you mean 
that you have refused Rowan ? Or have you 
found out at last that he has no intention of 
marrying you — has never had any ? ” 

Isabel rose : “ Excuse me,’* she said 

proudly and turned away. She reached the 
door and pausing there put out one of her 
hands against the lintel as if with weakness 
and raised the other to her forehead as 
though with bewilderment and indecision. 

Then she came unsteadily back, sank 
upon her knees, and hid her face in her 
grandmother’s lap, murmuring through her 
fingers : “ I have been rude to you, grand- 
mother 1 Forgive me ! I do not know 
what I have been saying. But any little 
trouble between us is nothing, nothing ! 
And do as I beg you — let this be sacred 
and secret ! And leave everything to me ! ” 
She crept closer and lifting her face looked 


JO The Mettle of the Pasture 


up into her grandmother's. She shrank 
back shuddering from what she saw there, 
burying her face in her hands ; then rising 
she hurried from the room. 

Mrs. Conyers sat motionless. 

Was it true then that the desire and the 
work of years for this marriage had come to 
nothing? And was it true that this grand- 
child, for whom she had planned and plotted, 
did not even respect her and could tell her so 
to her face ? 

Those insulting words rang in her ears 
still : Tou must give me your word of honor 
it is too late to be sensitive about our 
characters y 

She sat perfectly still : and in the parlors 
there might have been heard at intervals the 
scratching of her sharp finger nails against the 
wood of the chair. 


IV 


The hot day ended. Toward sunset a 
thunder-shower drenched the earth, and the 
night had begun cool and refreshing. 

Mrs. Conyers was sitting on the front 
veranda, waiting for her regular Sunday 
evening visitor. She was no longer the self- 
revealed woman of the afternoon, but seem- 
ingly an affable, harmless old lady of the night 
on the boundary of her social world. She 
was dressed with unfailing elegance — and her 
taste lavished itself especially on black silk 
and the richest lace. The shade of helio- 
trope satin harmonized with the yellowish 
folds of her hair. Her small, warm, un- 
wrinkled hands were without rings, being 
too delicately beautiful. In one she held a 
tiny fan, white and soft like the wing of a 
moth ; on her lap lay a handkerchief as light 
as smoke or a web of gossamer. 

She rocked softly. She unfolded and 

folded the night-moth fan softly. She 
touched the handkerchief to her rosy youth- 
7 * 


72 The Mettle of the Pasture 

ful lips softly. The south wind blew in her 
face softly. Everything about her was soft- 
ness, all her movements were delicate and 
refined. Even the early soft beauty of her 
figure was not yet lost. (When a girl of 
nineteen, she had measured herself by the 
proportions of the ideal Venus; and the 
ordeal had left her with a girdle of golden 
reflections.) 

But if some limner had been told the 
whole truth of what she was and been re- 
quested to imagine a fitting body for such a 
soul, he would never have painted Mrs. 
Conyers as she looked. Nature is not 
frank in her characterizations, lest we re- 
main infants in discernment. She allows 
foul to appear fair, and bids us become 
educated in the hardy virtues of insight and 
prudence. Education as yet had advanced 
but little; and the deepest students in the 
botany of women have been able to describe 
so few kinds that no man, walking through 
the perfumed enchanted wood, knows at what 
moment he may step upon or take hold of 
some unknown deadly variety. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 73 

As the moments passed, she stopped rock- 
ing and peered toward the front gate under 
the lamp-post, saying to herself : 

He is late.” 

At last the gate was gently opened and 
gently shut. 

“Ah,” she cried, leaning back in her 
chair smiling and satisfied. Then she sat 
up rigid. A change passed over her such as 
comes over a bird of prey when it draws its 
feathers in flat against its body to lessen 
friction in the swoop. She unconsciously 
closed the little fan, the little handkerchief 
disappeared somewhere. 

As the gate had opened and closed, on the 
bricks of the pavement was heard only the 
tap of his stout walking-stick ; for he was 
gouty and wore loose low shoes of the soft- 
est calfskin, and these made no noise except 
the slurring sound of slippers. 

Once he stopped, and planting his cane 
far out in the grass, reached stiffly over and 
with undisguised ejaculations of discomfort 
snipped off a piece of heliotrope in one of 
the tubs of oleander. He shook away the 


74 The Mettle of the Pasture 

raindrops and drew it through his button- 
hole, and she could hear his low Ah ! ah ! 
ah ! ” as he thrust his nose down into it. 

“ There’s nothing like it,” he said aloud 
as though he had consenting listeners, ‘‘it 
outsmells creation.” 

He stopped at another tub of flowers 
where a humming-bird moth was gathering 
honey and jabbed his stick sharply at it, tak- 
ing care that the stick did not reach peril- 
ously near. 

“ Get away, sir,” he said ; “ you’ve had 
enough, sir. Get away, sir.” 

Having reached a gravel walk that diverged 
from the pavement, he turned oflF and went 
over to a rose-bush and walked around tap- 
ping the roses on their heads as he counted 
them — cloth-of-gold roses. “Very well 
done,” he said, “ a large family — a good 
sign.” 

Thus he loitered along his way with leisure 
to enjoy all the chance trifles that gladdened 
it ; for he was one of the old who return at 
the end of life to the simple innocent things 
that pleased them as children. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 75 

She had risen and advanced to the edge of 
the veranda. 

“Did you come to see me or did you 
come to see my flowers ? she called out 
charmingly. 

“ I came to see the flowers, madam,” he 
called back. “ Most of all, the century plant : 
how is she ? ” 

She laughed delightedly : “ Still harping 
on my age, I see.” 

“ Still harping, but harping your praises. 
Century plants are not necessarily old : they 
are all young at the beginning ! I merely 
meant you’d be blooming at a hundred.” 

“ You are a sly old fox,” she retorted with 
a spirit. “ You give a woman a dig on her 
age and then try to make her think it a 
compliment.” 

“ I gave myself a dig that time : the re- 
mark had to be excavated,” he said aloud 
but as though confidentially to himself. 
Open disrespect marked his speech and man- 
ner with her always ; and sooner or later 
she exacted full punishment. 

Meantime he had reached the steps. 


j6 The Mettle of the Pasture 

There he stopped and taking off his straw 
hat looked up and shook it reproachfully at 
the heavens. 

‘‘ What a night, what a night ! he ex- 
claimed. And what an injustice to a man 
wading up to his knees in life's winters.” 

How do you do,” she said impatiently, 
always finding it hard to put up with his 
lingerings and delays. ‘^Are you coming 
in ? ” 

Thank you, I believe I am. But no, 
wait. Til not come in until I have made a 
speech. It never occurred to me before and 
it will never again. It’s now or never. 

‘‘The life of man should last a single year. 
He should have one spring for birth and 
childhood, for play and growth, for the end- 
ing of his dreams and the beginning of his 
love. One summer for strife and toil and 
passion. One autumn in which to gather 
the fruits of his deeds and to live upon them, 
be they sweet or bitter. One winter in which 
to come to an end and wrap himself with 
resignation in the snows of nature. Thus 
he should never know the pain of seeing 


The Mettle of the Pasture 77 

spring return when there was nothing within 
himself to bud or be sown. Summer would 
never rage and he have no conflicts nor 
passions. Autumn would not pass and he 
with idle hands neither give nor gather. And 
winter should not end without extinguishing 
his tormenting fires, and leaving him the 
peace of eternal cold.’* 

Really,” she cried, I have never heard 
anything as fine as that since I used to write 
compositions at boarding-school.” 

“ It may be part of one of mine ! ” he 
replied. ‘‘We forget ourselves, you know, 
and then we think we are original.” 

“ Second childhood,” she suggested. “ Are 
you really coming in ? ” 

“ I am, madam,” he replied. “ And guided 
by your suggestion, I come as a second child.” 

When he had reached the top step, he 
laid his hat and cane on the porch and took 
her hands in his — pressing them abstemi- 
ously. 

“ Excuse me if I do not press harder,” he 
said, lowering his voice as though he fancied 
they might be overheard. “I know you are 


78 The Mettle of the Pasture 

sensitive in these little matters ; but while I 
dislike to appear lukewarm, really, you know 
it is too late to be ardent,” and he looked at 
her ardently. 

She twisted her fingers out of his with coy 
shame. 

‘‘ What aii old fox,” she repeated gayly. 

“ Well, you know what goes with the 
fox — the foxess, or the foxina.” 

She had placed his chair not quite beside 
hers yet designedly near, where the light of 
the chandelier in the hall would fall out 
upon him and passers could see that he was 
there : she liked to have him appear de- 
voted. For his part he was too little devoted 
to care whether he sat far or near, in front 
or behind. As the light streamed out upon 
him, it illumined his noble head of soft, sil- 
very hair, which fell over his ears and fore- 
head, forgotten and disordered, like a romping 
boy’s. His complexion was ruddy — too 
ruddy with high living; his clean-shaven 
face beautiful with candor, gayety, and sweet- 
ness ; and his eyes, the eyes of a kind heart 
— saddened. He had on a big loose shirt 


The Mettle of the Pasture 79 

collar such .as men wore in Thackeray's time 
and a snow-white lawn tie. In the bosom 
of his broad-pleated shirt, made glossy with 
parafhn starch, there was set an old-fashioned 
cluster-diamond stud — so enormous that it 
looked like a large family of young diamonds 
in a golden nest. 

As he took his seat, he planted his big 
gold-headed ebony cane between his knees, 
put his hat on the head of his cane, gave it 
a twirl, and looking over sidewise at her, 
smiled with an equal mixture of real liking 
and settled abhorrence. 

For a good many years these two had 
been — not friends : she was incapable of so 
true a passion ; he was too capable to mis- 
apply it so unerringly. Their association 
had assumed the character of one of those 
belated intimacies, which sometimes spring 
up in the lives of aged men and women when 
each wants companionship but has been left 
companionless. 

Time was when he could not have believed 
that any tie whatsoever would ever exist be- 
tween them. Her first husband had been 


8o The Mettle of the Pasture 

his first law partner ; and from what he had 
been forced to observe concerning his part- 
ner’s fireside wretchedness during his few 
years of married life, he had learned to fear 
and to hate her. With his quick temper 
and honest way he made no pretence of hid- 
ing his feeling — declined her invitations — 
cut her openly in society — and said why. 
When his partner died, not killed indeed 
but broken-spirited, he spoke his mind on 
the subject more publicly and plainly still. 

She brewed the poison of revenge and 
waited. 

A year or two later when his engagement 
was announced her opportunity came. In a 
single day it was done — so quietly, so per- 
fectly, that no one knew by whom. Scandal 
was set running — Scandal, which no pursu- 
ing messengers of truth and justice can ever 
overtake and drag backward along its path. 
His engagement was broken ; she whom he 
was to wed in time married one of his friends ; 
and for years his own life all but went to 
pieces. 

Time is naught, existence a span. One 


The Mettle of the Pasture 8i 

evening when she was old Mrs. Conyers, 
and he old Judge Morris, she sixty and he 
sixty-five, they met at an evening party. In 
all those years he had never spoken to her, 
nurturing his original dislike and rather sus- 
pecting that it was she who had so ruined 
him. But on this night there had been a 
great supper and with him a great supper 
was a great weakness : there had been wine, 
and wine was not a weakness at all, but a 
glass merely made him more than happy, 
more than kind. Soon after supper there- 
fore he was strolling through the emptied 
rooms in a rather lonesome way, his face 
like a red moon in a fog, beseeching only 
that it might shed its rays impartially on any 
approachable darkness. 

Men with wives and children can well 
afford to turn hard cold faces to the outside 
world ; the warmth and tenderness of which 
they are capable they can exercise within 
their own restricted enclosures. No doubt 
some of them consciously enjoy the contrast 
in their two selves — the one as seen abroad 
and the other as understood at home. But 


8 2 The Mettle of the Pasture 

a wifeless, childless man — wandering at large 
on the heart’s bleak common — has much the 
same reason to smile on all that he has to smile 
on any : there is no domestic enclosure for 
him: his affections must embrace humanity. 

As he strolled through the rooms, then, 
in his appealing way, seeking whom he could 
attach himself to, he came upon her seated 
in a doorway connecting two rooms. She 
sat alone on a short sofa, possibly by design, 
her train so arranged that he must step over 
it if he advanced — the only being in the 
world that he hated. In the embarrassment 
of turning his back upon her or of trampling 
her train, he hesitated ; smiling with lowered 
eyelids she motioned him to a seat by her side. 

What a vivacious, agreeable old woman,” 
he soliloquized with enthusiasm as he was 
driven home that night, sitting in the middle 
of the carriage cushions with one arm swung 
impartially through the strap on each side. 
‘‘And she has invited me to Sunday evening 
supper. Me! — after all these years — in 
that house ! I’ll not go.” 

But he went. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 83 

“ Fll not go again,” he declared as he 
reached home that night and thought it over. 

She is a bad woman.” 

But the following Sunday evening he 
reached for his hat and cane : I must 
go somewhere,” he complained resentfully. 

The saints of my generation are enjoying 
the saint's rest. Nobody is left but a few 
long-lived sinners, of whom I am a great 
part. They are the best I can find, and I 
suppose they are the best I deserve.” 

Those who live long miss many. With- 
out exception his former associates at the bar 
had been summoned to appear before the 
Judge who accepts no bribe. 

The ablest of the middle-aged lawyers 
often hurried over to consult him in difficult 
cases. All of them could occasionally listen 
while he, praiser of a bygone time, recalled 
the great period of practice when he was the 
favorite criminal lawyer of the first families, 
defending their sons against the common- 
wealth which he always insisted was the 
greater criminal. The young men about 
town knew him and were ready to chat with 


84 The Mettle of the Pasture 

him on street corners — but never very long 
at a time. In his old law offices he could 
spend part of every day, guiding or guying 
his nephew Barbee, who had just begun to 
practice. But when all his social resources 
were reckoned, his days contained great 
voids and his nights were lonelier still. The 
society of women remained a necessity of 
his life ; and the only woman in town, 
always bright, always full of ideas, and al- 
ways glad to see him (the main difficulty) 
was Mrs. Conyers. 

So that for years now he had been going 
regularly on Sunday evenings. He kept up 
apologies to his conscience regularly also ; 
but it must have become clear that his con- 
science was not a fire to make him boil ; it 
was merely a few coals to keep him bubbling. 

In this acceptance of her at the end of life 
there was of course mournful evidence of his 
own deterioration. During the years between 
being a young man and being an old one 
he had so far descended toward her level, 
that upon renewing acquaintance with her 
he actually thought that she had improved 


The Mettle of the Pasture 85 

Youth with its white-flaming ideals is the 
great separator; by middle age most of us 
have become so shaken down, on life’s rough 
road, to a certain equality of bearing and 
forbearing, that miscellaneous comradeship 
becomes easy and rather comforting ; while 
extremely aged people are as compatible and 
as miserable as disabled old eagles, grouped 
with a few inches of each other’s beaks and 
claws on the sleek perches of a cage. 

This evening therefore, as he took his seat 
and looked across at her, so richly dressed, 
so youthful, soft, and rosy, he all but thanked 
heaven out loud that she was at home. 

Madam,” he cried, you are a wonder- 
ful and bewitching old lady” — it was on 
the tip of his tongue to say “ beldam.” 

I know it,” she replied briskly, “ have 
you been so long in finding it out ? ” 

It is a fresh discovery every time I come.” 
Then you forget me in the meanwhile.” 
I never forget you unless I am thinking 
of Miss Isabel. How is she ? ” 

Not well.” 

‘‘Then Tm not well! No one is well ! 


86 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Everybody must suffer if she is suffering. 
The universe sympathizes.” 

She is not ill. She is in trouble.” 

‘‘ But she must not be in trouble ! She 
has done nothing to be in trouble about. 
Who troubles her ? What troubles her ? ” 
She will not tell.” 

‘‘ Ah ! ” he cried, checking himself gravely 
and dropping the subject. 

She noted the decisive change of tone : it 
was not by this direct route that she would 
be able to enter his confidence. 

‘‘ What did you think of the sermon this 
morning ? ” 

“ The sermon on the prodigal ? Well, 
it is too late for such sermons to be levelled 
at me ; and I never listen to those aimed at 
other people.” 

“ At what other people do you suppose 
this one could have been directed ? ” She 
asked the question most carelessly, lifting 
her imponderable handkerchief and letting it 
drop into her lap as a sign of how little her 
interest weighed. 

‘‘ It is not my duty to judge.” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 87 

‘‘We cannot help our thoughts, you 
know.” 

“ I think we can, madam ; and I also 
think we can hold our tongues,” and he 
laughed at her very good-naturedly. “ Some- 
times we can even help to hold other peo- 
ple's — if they are long.” 

“ Oh, what a rude speech to a lady ! ” 
she exclaimed gallantly. “ Did you see the 
Osborns at church ? And did you notice 
him ? What an unhappy marriage ! He 
is breaking Kate's heart. And to think 
that his character — or the lack of it — 
should have been discovered only when it 
was too late! How can you men so cloak 
yourselves before marriage ? Why not tell 
women the truth then instead of leaving 
them to find it out afterward ? Are he and 
Rowan as good friends as ever?” The 
question was asked with the air of guileless- 
ness. 

“ I know nothing about that,” he replied 
dryly. “ I never knew Rowan to drop his 
friends because they had failings : it would 
break up all friendships, I imagine.” 


88 The Mettle of the Pasture 

“Well, I cannot help my thoughts, and I 
think George Osborn was the prodigal aimed 
at in the sermon. Everybody thought so.” 

“ How does she know what everybody 
thought?” commented the Judge to him- 
self. He tapped the porch nervously with 
his cane, sniffed his heliotrope and said 
irrelevantly : 

“ Ah me, what a beautiful night ! What 
a beautiful night ! ” 

The implied rebuff provoked her. Irri- 
tation winged a venomous little shaft : 

O 

“At least no woman has ever held you 
responsible for her unhappiness.” 

“You are quite right, madam,” he replied, 
“ the only irreproachable husband in this 
world is the man who has no wife.” 

“ By the way,” she continued, “ in all 
these years you have not told me why you 
never married. Come now, confess ! ” 

How well she knew ! How often as she 
had driven through the streets and observed 
him sitting alone in the door of his office 
or walking aimlessly about, she had leaned 
back and laughed. 


The Mettle of the Pastm^e 89 

“ Madam,” he replied, for he did not like 
the question, ‘‘ neither have you ever told 
me why you married three times. Come 
now, confess.” 

It would soon be time for him to leave ; 
and still she had not gained her point. 

“ Rowan was here this afternoon,” she re- 
marked carelessly. He was sitting so that 
the light fell sidewise on his face. She 
noted how alert it became, but he said 
nothing. 

“ Isabel refused to see him.” 

He wheeled round and faced her with 
pain and surprise. 

“ Refused to see him ! ” 

She has told me since that she never 
intends to see him.” 

“ Never intends to see Rowan again ! ” 
he repeated the incredible words, “ not see 
Rowan again 1 ” 

“ She says we are to drop him from the 
list of our acquaintances.” 

Ah ! ” he cried with impetuous sadness, 
they must not quarrel ! They must not ! ” 
But they have quarrelled,” she replied. 


90 The Mettle of the Pasture 

revealing her own anxiety. “ Now they 
must be reconciled. That is why I come 
to you. I am Isabel’s guardian ; you were 
Rowan’s. Each of us wishes this marriage. 
Isabel loves Rowan. I know that; there- 
fore it is not her fault. Therefore it is 
Rowan’s fault. Therefore he has said some- 
thing or he has done something to offend 
her deeply. Therefore if you do not know 
what this is, you must find out. And you 
must come and tell me. May I depend 
upon you ? ” 

He had become grave. At length he 
said : I shall go straight to Rowan and 

ask him.” 

“ No ! ” she cried, laying her hand heavily 
on his arm, “ Isabel bound me to secrecy. 
She does not wish this to be known.” 

“ Ah ! ” he exclaimed, angry at being en- 
trapped into a broken confidence, “ then 
Miss Isabel binds me also : I shall honor 
her wish,” and he rose. 

She kept her seat but yawned so that he 
might notice it. You are not going ? ” 

‘‘Yes, I am going. I have stayed too 


The Mettle of the Pasture 91 

long already. Good night ! Good night ! 
He spoke curtly over his shoulders as he 
hurried down the steps. 

She had forgotten him before he reached 
the street, having no need just then to keep 
him longer in mind. She had threshed out 
the one grain of wheat, the single compact 
little truth, that she wanted. This was the 
certainty that Judge Morris, who was the 
old family lawyer of the Merediths, and had 
been Rowan’s guardian, and had indeed 
known him intimately from childhood, was 
in ignorance of any reason for the present 
trouble ; otherwise he would not have said 
that he should go to Rowan and ask the 
explanation. She knew him to be incapable 
of duplicity ; in truth she rather despised 
him because he had never cultivated a taste 
for the delights and resources of hypocrisy. 

Her next step must be to talk at once with 
the other person vitally interested — Rowan’s 
mother. She felt no especial admiration for 
that grave, earnest, and rather sombre lady ; 
but neither did she feel admiration for her 
sterling knife and fork : still she made 


92 The Mettle of the Pasture 

them serviceable for the ulterior ends of 
being. 

Her plan then embraced a visit to Mrs. 
Meredith in the morning with the view of 
discovering whether she was aware of the 
estrangement, and if aware whether she 
would in any unintentional way throw light 
upon the cause of it. Moreover — and 
this was kept clearly in view — there would 
be the chance of meeting Rowan himself, 
whom she also determined to see as soon as 
possible : she might find him at home, or 
she might encounter him on the road or 
riding over his farm. But this visit must 
be made without Isabel's knowledge. It 
must further be made to appear incidental 
to Mrs. Meredith herself — or to Rowan. 
She arranged therefore with that tortuous 
and superfluous calculation of which hypocrisy 
is such a master — and mistress — that she 
would at breakfast, in Isabel's presence, order 
the carriage, and announce her intention of 
going out to the farm of Ambrose Webb. 
Ambrose Webb was a close neighbor of the 
Merediths. He owned a small estate, most 


The Mettle of the Pasture 93 

of which was good grass-land that was usually 
rented for pasture. She had for years kept 
her cows there when dry. This arrange- 
ment furnished her the opportunity for more 
trips to the farm than interest in her dairy 
warranted ; it made her Mrs. Meredith’s 
most frequent incidental visitor. 

Having thus determined upon her imme- 
diate course for the prompt unravelling of 
this mysterious matter, she dismissed it from 
her mind, passed into her bedroom and was 
soon asleep : a smile played over the sweet 
old face. 

The Judge walked slowly across the town 
in the moonlight. 

It was his rule to get home to his rooms 
by ten o’clock ; and people living on the 
several streets leading that way were used to 
hearing him come tapping along before that 
hour. If they sat in their doorways and the 
night was dark, they gave him a pleasant 
greeting through the darkness.; if there was 
a moon or if he could be seen under a lamp 
post, they added smiles. No one loved him 


94 Mettle of the Pasture 

supremely, but every one liked him a little 

— on the whole, a stable state for a man. 
For his part he accosted every one that he 
could see in a bright cheery way and with 
a quick inquiring glance as though every 
heart had its trouble and needed just a little 
kindness. He was reasonably sure that the 
old had their troubles already and that the 
children would have theirs some day ; so 
that it was merely the difference between 
sympathizing with the present and sympa- 
thizing with the future. As he careened 
along night after night, then, friendly little 
gusts of salutation blew the desolate drifting 
figure over the homeward course. 

His rooms were near the heart of the town, 
in a shady street well filled with law offices : 
these were of red brick with green shutters 

— green when not white with dust. The fire 
department was in the same block, though he 
himself did not need to be safeguarded from 
conflagrations : the fires which had always 
troubled him could not have been reached 
with ladder and hose. There were two or 
three livery stables also, the chairs of which 


The Mettle of the Pasture 95 

he patronized liberally, but not the vehicles. 
And there was a grocery, where he some- 
times bought crystallized citron and Brazil 
nuts, a curious kind of condiment of his own 
devising : a pound of citron to a pound of 
nuts, if all were sound. He used to keep 
little brown paper bags of these locked in his 
drawer with legal papers and munched them 
sometimes while preparing murder cases. 

At the upper corner of the block, opposite 
each other, were a saloon and the jail, two 
establishments which contributed little to 
each other’s support, though well inclined 
to do so. The law offices seemed of old to 
have started in a compact procession for the 
jail, but at a certain point to have paused 
with the understanding that none should 
seek undue advantage by greater proximity. 
Issuing from this street at one end and turn- 
ing to the left, you came to the court- 
house — the bar of chancery ; issuing from 
it at the other end and turning to the right, 
you came to the hotel — the bar of corn. 
The lawyers were usually solicitors at large 
and impartial practitioners at each bar. In 


96 The Mettle of the Pasture 

the court room they sometimes tried to 
prove an alibi for their clients ; at the hotel 
they often succeeded in proving one for 
themselves. 

These law offices were raised a foot or two 
above the level of the street. The front 
rooms could be used for clients who were 
so important that they should be seen ; the 
back rooms were for such as brought busi- 
ness, but not necessarily fame. Driving 
through this street, the wives of the lawyers 
could lean forward in their carriages and if 
their husbands were busy, they could smile 
and bow ; if their husbands were idle, they 
could look straight ahead. 

He passed under the shadow of the old 
court-house where in his prime he had 
fought his legal battles against the common- 
wealth. He had been a great lawyer and he 
knew it (if he had married he might have 
been Chief Justice). Then he turned the 
corner and entered the street of jurispru- 
dence and the jail. About midway he 
reached the staircase opening from the side- 
walk to his rooms above. 


The Mettle of the Fastm^e 97 

He was not poor and he could have lived 
richly had he wished. But when a man 
does not marry there are so many other 
things that he never espouses ; and he was 
not wedded to luxury. As he lighted the 
chandelier over the centre-table in his sitting 
room, the light revealed an establishment 
every article of which, if it had no virtues, at 
least possessed habits : certainly everything 
had its own way. He put his hat and cane 
on the table, not caring to go back to the hat- 
rack in his little hall, and seated himself in 
his olive morocco chair. As he did so, every- 
thing in the room — the chairs, the curtains, 
the rugs, the card-table, the punch-bowl, the 
other walking-sticks, and the rubbers and 
umbrellas — seemed to say in an affectionate 
chorus : Well, now that you are in safe for 
the night, we feel relieved. So good night 
and pleasant dreams to you, for we are going 
to sleep ; ” and to sleep they went. 

The gas alone flared up and said, “Til 
stay up with him.’' 

He drew out and wiped his glasses and 
reached for the local Sunday paper, his Sun- 


H 


98 The Mettle of the Pasture 

day evening Bible. He had read it in the 
morning, but he always gleaned at night : 
he met so many of his friends by reading 
their advertisements. But to-night he spread 
it across his knees and turning to the table 
lifted the top of a box of cigars, an orderly 
responsive family ; the paper slipped to the 
floor and lay forgotten behind his heels. 

He leaned back in the chair with his cigar 
in his mouth and his eyes directed toward 
the opposite wall, where in an oval frame 
hung the life-size portrait of an old bulldog. 
The eyes were blue and watery and as full 
of suffering as a seal’s ; from the extremity 
of the lower jaw a tooth stood up like a 
shoemaker’s peg; and over the entire face 
was stamped the majesty, the patience, and 
the manly woes of a nature that had lived 
deeply and too long. The Judge’s eyes 
rested on this comrade face. 

The events of the day had left him trou- 
bled. Any sermon on the prodigal always 
touches men ; even if it does not prick their 
memories, it can always stir their imagina- 
tions. Whenever he heard one, his mind 


The Mettle of the Pasture 99 

went back to the years when she who after- 
wards became Rowan's mother had cast him 
off, so settling life for him. For after that 
experience he had put away the thought 
of marriage. “To be so treated once is 
enough,” he had said sternly and proudly. 
True, in after years she had come back to 
him as far as friendship could bring her back, 
since she was then the wife of another ; but 
every year of knowing her thus had only 
served to deepen the sense of his loss. He 
had long since fallen into the habit of think- 
ing this over of Sunday evenings before 
going to bed, and as the end of life closed in 
upon him, he dwelt upon it more and more. 

These familiar thoughts swarmed back 
to-night, but with them were mingled new 
depressing ones. Nothing now perhaps could 
have caused him such distress as the thought 
that Rowan and Isabel would never marry. 
All the love that he had any right to pour into 
any life, he had always poured with passion- 
ate and useless yearnings into Rowan's — 
son of the only woman he had ever loved — 
the boy that should have been his own. 


loo The Mettle of the Pasture 

There came an interruption. A light 
quick step was heard mounting the stairs. A 
latch key was impatiently inserted in the 
hall door. A bamboo cane was dropped 
loudly into the holder of the hat-rack ; a soft 
hat was thrown down carelessly somewhere 
— it sounded like a wet mop flung into a 
corner ; and there entered a young man 
straight, slender, keen-faced, with red hair, 
a freckled skin, large thin red ears, and a 
strong red mouth. As he stepped forward 
into the light, he paused, parting the hair out 
of his eyes and blinking. 

“ Good evening, uncle/' he said in a shrill 
key. 

“ Well, sir.” 

Barbee looked the Judge carefully over; he 
took the Judge’s hat and cane from the table 
and hung them in the hall ; he walked over 
and picked up the newspaper from between 
the Judge’s legs and placed it at his elbow; 
he set the ash tray near the edge of the table 
within easy reach of the cigar. Then he 
threw himself into a chair across the room, 
lighted a cigarette, blew the smoke toward 


The Mettle of the Pasture loi 

the ceiling like the steam of a little whistle 
signalling to stop work. 

“Well, uncle,” he said in a tone in which 
a lawyer might announce to his partner the 
settlement of a long-disputed point, “ Mar- 
guerite is in love with me ! ” 

The Judge smoked on, his eyes resting on 
the wall. 

“ Yes, sir ; in love with me. The truth 
had to come out sometime, and it came out 
to-night. And now the joy of life is gone 
for me ! As soon as a woman falls in love 
with a man, his peace is at an end. But I 
am determined that it shall not interfere with 
my practice.” 

“ What practice ? ” 

“ The practice of my profession, sir ! 
The profession of yourself and of the 
great men of the past: such places have 
to be filled.” 

“ Filled, but not filled with the same 
thing.” 

“You should have seen the other hapless 
wretches there to-night ! Pining for a smile ! 
Moths begging the candle to scorch them ! 


102 The Mettle of the Pasture 

And the candle was as cold as the north star 
and as distant.*' 

Barbee rose and took a turn across the 
room and returning to his chair stood before 
it. 

If Marguerite had only waited, had con- 
cealed herself a little longer ! Why did she 
not keep me in doubt until I had won some 
great case ! Think of a scene like this : a 
crowded court room some afternoon ; people 
outside the doors and windows craning their 
necks to see and hear me ; the judge 
nervous and excited ; the members of the bar 
beside themselves with jealousy as I arise 
and confront the criminal and jury. Margue- 
rite is seated just behind the jury ; I know 
why she chose that seat ; she wished to study 
me to the best advantage. I try to catch 
her eye ; she will not look at me. For three 
hours my eloquence storms. The judge 
acknowledges to a tear, the jurors reach 
for their handkerchiefs, the people in the 
court room sob like the skies of autumn. 
As I finish, the accused arises and addresses 
the court : ‘ May it please your honor, in 


The Mettle of the Pasture 103 

the face of such a masterly prosecution, I 
can no longer pretend to be innocent. Sir 
(addressing me), I congratulate you upon 
your magnificent service to the common- 
wealth. Gentlemen of the jury, you need 
not retire to bring in any verdict : I bring it in 
myself, I am guilty, and my only wish is to 
be hanged. I suggest that you have it done 
at once in order that nothing may mar the 
success of this occasion ! ’ That night Margue- 
rite sends for me : that would have been the 
time for a declaration ! I have a notion 
if I can extricate myself without wounding 
this poor little innocent, to forswear matri- 
mony and march on to fame.’’ 

“ March on to bed.” 

Marguerite is going to give a ball, uncle, 
a brilliant ball merely to celebrate this irre- 
pressible efflux and panorama of her emo- 
tions. Watch me at that ball, uncle! Mark 
the rising Romeo of the firm when Margue- 
rite, the youthful Juliet of this town — ” 

A hand waved him quietly toward his bed- 
room. 

‘‘ Well, good night, sir, good night. When 


104 The Mettle of the Pasture 

the lark sings at heaven’s gate I’ll greet thee, 
uncle. My poor Marguerite! — Good night, 
uncle, good night.” 

He was only nineteen. 

The Judge returned to his thoughts. 

He must have thought a long time : the 
clock not far away struck twelve. He took 
off his glasses, putting them negligently on 
the edge of the ash tray which tipped over 
beneath their weight and fell to the floor : 
he picked up his glasses, but let the ashes 
lie. Then he stooped down to take off his 
shoes, not without sounds of bodily discom- 
fort. 

Aroused by these sounds or for other 
reasons not to be discovered, there emerged 
from under a table on which was piled “ The 
Lives of the Chief Justices ” a bulldog, 
cylindrical and rigid with years. Having 
reached a decorous position before the Judge, 
by the slow action of the necessary machin- 
ery he lowered the posterior end of the 
cylinder to the floor and watched him. 

Well, did I get them off about right ? ” 

The dog with a private glance of sym- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 105 

pathy up into the Judge’s face returned to 
his black goatskin rug under the Chief 
Justices ; and the Judge, turning off the 
burners in the chandelier and striking a 
match, groped his way in his sock feet to 
his bedroom — to the bed with its one 
pillow. 


V 


Out in the country next morning it was 
not yet break of dawn. The stars, thickly 
flung about, were flashing low and yellow as 
at midnight, but on the horizon the great 
change had begun. Not with colors of rose 
or pearl but as the mysterious foreknowledge 
of the morning, when a vast swift herald 
rushes up from the east and sweeps onward 
across high space, bidding the earth be in 
readiness for the drama of the sun. 

The land, heavy with life, lay wrapped in 
silence, steeped in rest. Not a bird in wet 
hedge or evergreen had drawn nimble head 
from nimble wing. In meadow and pasture 
fold and herd had sunk down satisfied. A 
black brook brawling through a distant wood 
sounded loud in the stillness. Under the 
forest trees around the home of the Mere- 
diths only drops of dew might have been 
heard splashing downward from leaf to leaf. 
In the house all slept. The mind, wake- 
fullest of happy or of suffering things, had 

io6 


The Mettle of the Pasture 107 

jost consciousness of joy and care save as 
these had been crowded down into the 
chamber which lies beneath our sleep, whence 
they made themselves audible through the 
thin flooring as the noise of dreams. 

Among the parts of the day during which 
man may match the elements of the world 
within him to the world without — his songs 
with its sunrises, toil with n*bontide, prayer 
with nightfall, slumber with dark — there is 
one to stir within him the greatest sense of 
responsibility : the hour of dawn. 

If he awaken then and be alone, he is 
earliest to enter the silent empty theatre of 
the earth where the human drama is soon to 
recommence. Not a mummer has stalked 
forth; not an auditor sits waiting. He him- 
self, as one of the characters in this ancient 
miracle play of nature, pauses at the point 
of separation between all that he has en- 
acted and all that he will enact. Yesterday 
he was in the thick of action. Between then 
and now lies the night, stretching like a bar 
of verdure across wearying sands. In that 
verdure he has rested ; he has drunk forget- 


io8 The Mettle of the Pasture 

fulness and self-renewal from those deep wells 
of sleep. Soon the play will be ordered on 
again and he must take his place for parts 
that are new and confusing to all. The ser- 
vitors of the morning have entered and hung 
wall and ceiling with gorgeous draperies; the 
dust has been sprinkled; fresh airs are blow- 
ing ; and there is music, the living orchestra 
of the living earth. Well for the waker then 
if he can look back upon the role he has 
played with a quiet conscience, and as natu- 
rally as the earth greets the sun step forth 
upon the stage to continue or to end his 
brief part in the long drama of destiny. 

The horizon had hardly begun to turn 
red when a young man, stretched on his bed 
by an open window, awoke from troubled 
sleep. He lay for a few moments without 
moving, then he sat up on the edge of the 
bed. His hands rested listlessly on his knee- 
caps and his eyes were fixed on the sky-line 
crimsoning above his distant woods. 

After a while he went over and sat at one 
of the windows, his eyes still fixed on the 
path of the coming sun ; and a great tragedy 


The Mettle of the Pasture 109 

of men sat there within him : the tragedy 
that has wandered long and that wanders 
ever, showing its face in all lands, retaining 
its youth in all ages ; the tragedy of love 
that heeds not law, and the tragedy of law 
forever punishing heedless love. 

Gradually the sounds of life began. From 
the shrubs under his window, from the or- 
chard and the wet weeds of fence corners, 
the birds reentered upon their lives. Far 
off in the meadows the cattle rose from their 
warm dry places, stretched themselves and 
awoke the echoes of the wide rolling land 
with peaceful lowing. A brood mare in a 
grazing lot sent forth her quick nostril call 
to the foal capering too wildly about her, and 
nozzled it with rebuking affection. On the 
rosy hillsides white lambs were leaping and 
bleating, or running down out of sight under 
the white sea-fog of the valleys. A milk cart 
rattled along the turnpike toward the town. 

It had become broad day. 

He started up and crossed the hall to the 
bedroom opposite, and stood looking down 
at his younger brother. How quiet Dent's 


1 1 o The Mettle of the Pasture 

sleep was ; how clear the current of his life 
had run and would run always ! No trag- 
edy would ever separate him and the woman 
he loved. 

When he went downstairs the perfect 
orderliness of his mother’s housekeeping 
had been before him. Doors and windows 
had been opened to the morning freshness, 
sweeping and dusting had been done, not a 
servant was in sight. His setters lay wait- 
ing on the porch and as he stepped out they 
hurried up with glistening eyes and soft bark- 
ings and followed him as he passed around 
to the barn. Work was in progress there: 
the play of currycombs, the whirl of the cut- 
ting-box, the noise of the mangers, the bel- 
lowing of calves, the rich streamy sounds of 
the milking. He called his men to him one 
after another, laying out the work of the day. 

When he returned to the house he saw 
his mother walking on the front pavement ; 
she held flowers freshly plucked for the 
breakfast table : a woman of large mould, 
grave, proud, noble ; an ideal of her place 
and time. 


1 1 1 


The Mettle of the Pasture 

“Is the lord of the manor ready for his 
breakfast ? ” she asked as she came forward, 
smiling. 

“ I am ready, mother,” he replied without 
smiling, touching his lips to her cheek. 

She linked her arm in his as they ascended 
the steps. At the top she drew him gently 
around until they faced the landscape rolling 
wide before them. 

“ It is so beautiful ! ” she exclaimed with 
a deep narrow love of her land. “ I never 
see it without thinking of it as it will be 
years hence. I can see you riding over it 
then and your children playing around the 
house and some one sitting here where we 
stand, watching them at their play and watch- 
ing you in the distance at your work. But 
I have been waiting a long time for her to 
take my place — and to take her own,” and 
she leaned heavily on his arm as a sign of 
her dependence but out of weakness also (for 
she did not tell him all). “ I am impatient 
to hear the voice of your children. Rowan. 
Do you never wish to hear them yourself? ” 

As they stood silent, footsteps approached 


1 1 2 The Mettle of the Pasture 

through the hall and turning they saw Dent 
with a book in his hand. 

Are you grand people never coming to 
breakfast ? ” he asked, frowning with pre- 
tended impatience, so that a laboring man 
may go to his work ? ’’ 

He was of short but well-knit figure. 
Spectacles and a thoughtful face of great 
refinement gave him the student’s stamp. 
His undergraduate course at college would 
end in a few weeks. Postgraduate work 
was to begin during the summer. An as- 
sistant professorship, then a^full professor- 
ship — these were successive stations already 
marked by him on the clear track of life ; 
and he was now moving toward them with 
straight and steady aim. Sometimes we 
encounter personalities which seem to move 
through the discords of this life as though 
guided by laws of harmony ; they know 
neither outward check nor inward swerving, 
and are endowed with that peaceful passion 
for toil which does the world’s work and is 
one of the marks of genius. 

He was one of these — a growth of the 


The Mettle of the Pasture 1 1 3 

new time not comprehended by his mother. 
She could neither understand it nor him. 
The pain which this had given him at first 
he had soon outgrown ; and what might 
have been a tragedy to another nature 
melted away in the steady sunlight of his 
entire reasonableness. Perhaps he realized 
that the scientific son can never be the idol 
of a household until he is born of scientific 
parents. 

As mother and elder son now turned 
to greet him, the mother was not herself 
aware that she still leaned upon the arm of 
Rowan and that Dent walked into the break- 
fast room alone. 

Less than usual was said during the meal. 
They were a reserved household, inclined 
to the small nobilities of silence. (It is 
questionable whether talkative families ever 
have much to say.) This morning each had 
especial reason for self-communing. 

When they had finished breakfast and 
came out into the hall. Dent paused at one 
of the parlor doors. 

‘‘Mother,” he said simply, “come into 


1 14 The Mettle of the Pasture 

the parlor a moment, will you ? And Rowan, 
I should like to see you also.*’ 

They followed him with surprise and all 
seated themselves. 

“ Mother,” he said, addressing her with 
a clear beautiful light in his gray eyes, yet 
not without the reserve which he always 
felt and always inspired, “ I wish to tell you 
that I am engaged to Pansy Vaughan. And 
to tell you also. Rowan. You know that I 
finish college this year; she does also. We 
came to an understanding yesterday after- 
noon and I wish you both to know it at 
once. We expect to be married in the 
autumn as soon as I am of age and a man 
in my own right. Mother, Pansy is coming 
to see you ; and. Rowan, I hope you will 
go to see Pansy. Both of you will like her 
and be proud of her when you know her.” 

He rose as though he had rounded his 
communication to a perfect shape. “Now I 
must get to my work. Good morning,” and 
with a smile for each he walked quietly out 
of the room. He knew that he could not 
expect their congratulations at that moment 


The Mettle of the Pasture 1 1 5 

and that further conference would be awk- 
ward for all. He could merely tell them the 
truth and leave the rest to the argument of 
time. 

But I cannot believe it, Rowan ! I can- 
not ! ” 

Mrs. Meredith sat regarding her elder son 
with incredulity and distress. The shock of 
the news was for certain reasons even greater 
to him ; so that he could not yet command 
himself sufficiently to comfort her. After a 
few moments she resumed : I did not know 
that Dent had begun to think about girls. 
He never said so. He has never cared for 
society. He has seemed absorbed in his 
studies. And now — Dent in love, Dent en- 
gaged, Dent to be married in the autumn — 
why. Rowan, am I dreaming, am I in my 
senses ? And to this girl ! She has en- 
trapped him — poor, innocent, unsuspecting 
Dent ! My poor, little, short-sighted book- 
worm.** Tears sprang to her eyes, but she 
laughed also. She had a mother*s hope that 
this trouble would turn to comedy. She 


1 1 6 The Mettle of the Pasture 

went on quickly : Did you know any- 

thing about this ? Has he ever spoken to 
you about it ? 

‘‘No, I am just as much surprised. But 
then Dent never speaks in advance.’" 

She looked at him a little timidly : “ I 
thought perhaps it was this that has been 
troubling you. You have been trying to 
hide it from me.” 

He dropped his eyes quickly and made 
no reply. 

“ And do you suppose he is in earnest, 
Rowan ? ” 

“He would never jest on such a subject.” 

“ I mean, do you think he knows his own 
mind ? ” 

“ He always does.” 

“ But would he marry against my wishes ? ” 

“He takes it for granted that you will be 
pleased : he said so.” 

“ But how can he think I’ll be pleased ? 
I have never spoken to this girl in my life. 
I have never seen her except when we have 
passed them on the turnpike. I never spoke 
to her father but once and that was years 


The Mettle of the Pasture iiy 

ago when he came here one cold winter after- 
noon to buy a shock of fodder from your 
father.” 

She was a white character; but even the 
whiteness of ermine gains by being flecked 
with blackness. “ How can he treat me with 
so little consideration ? It is just as if he 
had said : ‘ Good morning, mother. I am 
going to disgrace the family by my marriage, 
but I know you will be delighted — good 
morning.’ ” 

‘‘You forget that Dent does not think he 
will disgrace the family. He said you would 
be proud of her.” 

“Well, when the day comes for me to be 
proud of this, there will not be much left 
to be ashamed of. Rowan, for once I shall 
interfere.” 

“ How can you interfere ? ” 

“ Then you must : you are his guardian.” 

“ I shall not be his guardian by the 
autumn. Dent has arranged this perfectly, 
mother, as he always arranges everything.” 

She returned to her point. “ But he musl 
be kept from making such a mistake ! Talk 


1 1 8 The Mettle of the Pasture 

to him as a man. Advise him, show him 
that he will tie a millstone around his neck, 
ruin his whole life. I am willing to leave 
myself out and to forget what is due me, 
what is due you, what is due the memory of 
his father and of my father : for his own sake 
he must not marry this girl.” 

He shook his head slowly. “ It is set- 
tled, mother,” he added consolingly, and I 
have so much confidence in Dent that I be- 
lieve what he says : we shall be proud of her 
when we know her.” 

She sat awhile in despair. Then she said 
with fresh access of conviction : This is 

what comes of so much science : it always 
tends to make a man common in his social 
tastes. You need not smile at me in that 
pitying way, for it is true : it destroys aris- 
tocratic feeling ; and there is more need of 
aristocratic feeling in a democracy than any- 
where else : because it is the only thing that 
can be aristocratic. That is what science has 
done for Dent ! And this girl ! — the pub- 
lic school has tried to make her uncommon, 
and the Girl's College has attempted to make 


The Mettle of the Pasture 1 1 9 

her more uncommon ; and now I suppose she 
actually thinks she is uncommon : otherwise 
she would never have imagined that she could 
marry a son of mine. Smile on, I know I 
amuse you ! You think I am not abreast of 
the times. I am glad I am not. I prefer 
my own. Dent should have studied for the 
church — with his love of books, and his 
splendid mind, and his grave, beautiful char- 
acter. Then he would never have thought 
of marrying beneath him socially ; he would 
have realized that if he did, he could never 
rise. Once in the church and with the right 
kind of wife, he might some day have become 
a bishop : I have always wanted a bishop in 
the family. But he set his heart upon a pro- 
fessorship, and I suppose a professor does not 
have to be particular about whom he marries.** 
“ A professor has to be particular only to 
please himself — and the woman. His choice 
is not regulated by salaries and congregations.** 
She returned to her point: “You breed 
fine cattle and fine sheep, and you try to 
improve the strain of your setters. You 
know how you do it. What right has Dent 


120 The Mettle of the Pasture 

to injure his children in the race for life by 
giving them an inferior mother? Are not 
children to be as much regarded in their 
rights of descent as rams and poodles ? ” 

“ You forget that the first families in all 
civilizations have kept themselves alive and 
at the summit by intermarriage with good, 
clean, rich blood of people whom they have 
considered beneath them.” 

‘‘ But certainly my family is not among 
these. It is certainly alive and it is certainly 
not dying out. I cannot discuss the subject 
with you, if you once begin that argument. 
Are you going to call on her ? ” 

Certainly. It was Dent’s wish and it is 
right that I should.” 

Then I think I shall go with you. Rowan. 
Dent said she was coming to see me ; but I 
think I should rather go to see her. When- 
ever I wished to leave, I could get away, but 
if she came here, I couldn’t.” 

‘‘ When should you like to go ? ” 

‘‘ Oh, don’t hurry me ! I shall need time 
— a great deal of time ! Do you suppose 
they have a parlor ? I am afraid I shall not 


The Mettle of the Pasture 121 

shine in the kitchen in comparison with the 
tins.’’ 

She had a wry face ; then her brow cleared 
and she added with relief : 

“ But I must put this whole trouble out of 
my mind at present ! It is too close to me, I 
cannot even see it. I shall call on the girl with 
you and then I shall talk quietly with Dent. 
Until then I must try to forget it. Besides, I 
got up this morning with something else on 
my mind. It is not Dent’s unwisdom that 
distresses me.” 

Her tone indicated that she had passed to 
a more important topic. If any one had told 
her that her sons were not equally dear, the 
wound of such injustice would never have 
healed. In all that she could do for both 
there had never been maternal discrimina- 
tion ; but the heart of a woman cannot help 
feeling things that the heart of a mother does 
not ; and she discriminated as a woman. This 
was evident now as she waived her young son’s 
affairs. 

It is not Dent that I have been think- 
ing of this morning,” she repeated. “ Why 


122 The Mettle of the Pasture 

is it not you that come to tell me of your 
engagement ? Why have you not set Dent 
an example as to the kind of woman he 
ought to marry ? How many more years 
must he and I wait ? 

They were seated opposite each other. 
He was ready for riding out on the farm, 
his hat on his crossed knees, gloves and whip 
in hand. Her heart yearned over him as he 
pulled at his gloves, his head dropped for- 
ward so that his face was hidden. 

Now that the subject has come up in 
this unexpected way, I want to tell you how 
long I have wished to see you married. 
I have never spoken because my idea is 
that a mother should not advise unless she 
believes it necessary. And in your case it 
has not been necessary. I have known your 
choice, and long before it became yours, it 
became mine. She is my ideal among them 
all. I know women. Rowan, and I know 
she is worthy of you and I could not say 
more. She is high-minded and that quality 
is so rare in either sex. Without it what is 
any wife worth to a high-minded man ? And 


The Mettle of the Pasture 123 

I have watched her. With all her pride 
and modesty I have discovered her secret — 
she loves you. Then why have you waited ? 
Why do you still wait ? ” 

He did not answer and she continued 
with deeper feeling : 

“ Life is so uncertain to all of us and of 
course to me ! I want to see you wedded to 
her, see her brought here as mistress of this 
house, and live to hear the laughter of your 
children.” She finished with solemn emo- 
tion : It has been my prayer. Rowan.” 

She became silent with her recollections 
of her own early life for a moment and then 
resumed : 

‘‘ Nothing ever makes up for the loss of 
such years — the first years of happy mar- 
riage. If we have had these, no matter what 
happens afterward, we have not lived for 
nothing. It becomes easier for us to be 
kind and good afterward, to take an interest 
in life, to believe in our fellow-creatures, and 
in God.” 

He sprang up. 

Mother, I cannot speak with you about 


124 Mettle of the Pasture 


this now.” He turned quickly and stood 
with his back to her, looking out of doors ; 
and he spoke over his shoulder and his voice 
was broken: “You have had one disap- 
pointment this morning : it is enough. But 
do not think of my marrying — of my ever 
marrying. Dent must take my place at the 
head of the house. It is all over with me ! 
But I cannot speak with you about this now,” 
and he started quickly to leave the parlors. 

She rose and put her arm around his waist, 
walking beside him. 

“ You do not mind my speaking to you 
about this. Rowan ? ” she said, sore at hav- 
ing touched some trouble which she felt that 
he had long been hiding from her, and with 
full respect for the privacies of his life. 

“No, no, no!” he cried, choking with 
emotion. “ Ah, mother, mother ! ” — and 
he gently disengaged himself from her arms. 

She watched him as he rode out of sight. 
Then she returned and sat in the chair which 
he had quitted, folding her hands in her 
lap. 

For her it was one of the moments when 


The Mettle of the Pasture 125 

we are reminded that our lives are not in 
our keeping, and that whatsoever is to befall 
us originates in sources beyond our power. 
Our wills may indeed reach the length of our 
arms or as far as our voices can penetrate 
space ; but without us and within us moves 
one universe that saves us or ruins us only 
for its own purposes ; and we are no more 
free amid its laws than the leaves of the for- 
est are free to decide their own shapes and 
season of unfolding, to order the showers 
by which they are to be nourished and the 
storms which shall scatter them at last. 

Above every other she had cherished the 
wish for a marriage between Rowan and 
Isabel Conyers ; now for reasons unknown 
to her it seemed that this desire was never 
to be realized. She did not know the mean- 
ing of what Rowan had just said to her ; but 
she did not doubt therevwas meaning behind 
it, grave meaning. Her next most serious 
concern would have been that in time Dent 
likewise should choose a wife wisely ; now 
he had announced to her his intention to 
wed prematurely and most foolishly ; she 


126 The Mettle of the Pasture 

could not altogether shake off the conviction 
that he would do what he had said he 
should. 

As for Dent it was well-nigh the first 
anxiety that he had ever caused her. If her 
affection for him was less poignant, being 
tenderness stored rather than tenderness ex- 
ercised, this resulted from the very absence 
of his demand for it. He had always needed 
her so little, had always needed every one 
so little, unfolding his life from the first and 
drawing from the impersonal universe what- 
ever it required with the quietude and ef- 
ficiency of a prospering plant. She lacked 
imagination, or she might have thought of 
Dent as a filial sunflower, which turned the 
blossom of its life always faithfully and 
beautifully toward her, but stood rooted in 
the soil of knowledge that she could not 
supply. 

What she had always believed she could 
see in him was the perpetuation under a 
new form of his father and the men of his 
father’s line. 

These had for generations been grave 


The Mettle of the Pasture 127 

mental workers : ministers, lawyers, pro- 
fessors in theological seminaries ; narrow- 
minded, strong-minded; upright, unbending; 
black-browed, black-coated ; with a pas- 
sion always for dealing in justice and 
dealing out justice, human or heavenly ; 
most of all, gratified when in theological 
seminaries, when they could assert them- 
selves as inerrant interpreters of the Most 
High. The portraits of two of them hung 
in the dining room now, placed there as if to 
watch the table and see that grace was never 
left unsaid, that there be no levity at meat 
nor heresy taken in with the pudding. 
Other portraits were also in other rooms — 
they always had themselves painted for pos- 
terity, seldom or never their wives. 

Some of the books they had written were 
in the library, lucid explanations of the First 
Cause and of how the Judge of all the earth 
should be looked at from without and from 
within. Some that they had most loved to 
read were likewise there : “ Pollock^s Course 
of Time ” ; the slow outpourings of Young, 
sad sectary ; Milton, with the passages on 


128 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Hell approvingly underscored — not as great 
poetry, but as great doctrine ; nowhere in 
the bookcases a sign of the “ Areopagitica,” 
of ‘‘Comus,” and “L’ Allegro”; but most 
prominent the writings of Jonathan Edwards, 
hoarsest of the whole flock of New World 
theological ravens. 

Her marriage into this family had caused 
universal surprise. It had followed closely 
upon the scandals in regard to the wild 
young Ravenel Morris, the man she loved, 
the man she had promised to marry. These 
scandals had driven her to the opposite ex- 
treme from her first choice by one of life’s 
familiar reactions ; and in her wounded flight 
she had thrown herself into the arms of a 
man whom people called irreproachable. He 
was a grave lawyer, one of the best of his 
kind ; nevertheless he and she, when joined 
for the one voyage of two human spirits, were 
like a funeral barge lashed to some dancing 
boat, golden-oared, white-sailed, decked with 
flowers, Hope at the helm and Pleasure at 
the prow. 

For she herself had sprung from a radi- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 129 

cally different stock : from sanguine, hot- 
blooded men ; congressmen shaping the 
worldly history of their fellow-beings and 
leaving the non-worldly to take care of it- 
self; soldiers illustrious in the army and 
navy ; hale country gentlemen who took 
the lead in the country’s hardy sports and 
pleasures ; all sowing their wild oats early in 
life with hands that no power could stay ; 
not always living to reap, but always leaving 
enough reaping to be done by the sad inno- 
cent who never sow ; fathers of large fami- 
lies ; and even when breaking the hearts of 
their wives, never losing their love ; for with 
their large open frailties being men without 
crime and cowardice, tyrannies, meannesses. 

With these two unlike hereditary strains 
before her she had, during the years, slowly 
devised the maternal philosophy of her sons. 

Out of those grave mental workers had 
come Dent — her student. She loved to 
believe that in the making of him her own 
blood asserted itself by drawing him away 
from the tyrannical interpretation of God to 
the neutral investigation of the earth, from 


130 The Mettle oj the Pasture 

black theology to sunlit science — so leaving 
him at work and at peace, the ancestral an- 
tagonisms becoming neutralized by being 
blended. 

But Rowan ! while he was yet a little fel- 
low, and she and her young husband would 
sit watching him at play, characteristics re- 
vealed themselves which led her to shake 
her head rebukingly and say : ‘‘He gets 
these traits from you.” At other times 
contradictory characteristics appeared and 
the father, looking silently at her, would 
in effect inquire : “ Whence does he derive 
these ? ” On both accounts she began to 
look with apprehension toward this son’s 
maturing years. And always, as the years 
passed, evidence was forced more plainly 
upon her that in him the two natures he 
inherited were antagonistic still ; each alter- 
nately uppermost; both in unceasing war- 
fare ; thus endowing him with a double 
nature which might in time lead him to a 
double life. So that even then she had 
begun to take upon herself the burden of 
dreading lest she should not only be the 


The Mettle of the Pasture 131 

mother of his life, but the mother of his trag- 
edies. She went over this again and again : 

Am I to be the mother of his tragedies ? ” 

As she sat this young summer morning 
after he had left her so strangely, all at once 
the world became autumn to her remem- 
brance. 

An autumn morning : the rays of the sun 
shining upon the silvery mists swathing the 
trees outside, upon the wet and many-colored 
leaves ; a little frost on the dark grass here 
and there ; the first fires lighted within ; the 
carriage already waiting at the door; the 
breakfast hurriedly choked down — in silence; 
the mournful noise of his trunk being brought 
downstairs — his first trunk. Then the going 
out upon the veranda and the saying good-by 
to him ; and then — the carriage disappear- 
ing in the silver mists, with a few red and 
yellow leaves whirled high from the wheels. 

That was the last of the first Rowan, — 
youth at the threshold of manhood. Now 
off for college, to his university in New Eng- 
land. As his father and she stood side by 
side (he being too frail to take that chill 


132 The Mettle of the Pasture 

morning ride with his son) he waved his 
hand protectingly after him, crying out: 
“He is a good boy/' And she, having 
some wide vision of other mothers of the 
land who during these same autumn days 
were bidding God-speed to their idols — 
picked youth of the republic — she with 
some wide vision of this large fact stood a 
proud mother among them all, feeling sure 
that he would take foremost place in his 
college for good honest work and for high 
character and gentle manners and gallant 
bearing — with not a dark spot in him. 

It was toward the close of the first session, 
after she had learned the one kind of letter 
he always wrote, that his letters changed. 
She could not have explained how they were 
changed, could not have held the pages up to 
the inspection of any one else and have said, 
“ See ! it is here." But she knew it was 
there, and it stayed there. She waited for 
his father to notice it; but if he ever noticed 
it, he never told her : nor did she ever confide 
her discovery to him. 

When vacation came, it brought a request 


The Mettle of the Pasture 133 

from Rowan that he might be allowed to 
spend the summer with college friends farther 
north — camping, fishing, hunting, sailing, 
seeing more of his country. His father’s 
consent was more ready than her own. The 
second session passed and with the second 
vacation the request was renewed. ‘‘ Why 
does he not come home ? Why does he not 
wish to come home ? ” she said, wandering 
restlessly over the house with his letter in 
her hands ; going up to his bedroom and 
sitting down in the silence of it and looking at 
his bed — which seemed so strangely white 
that day — looking at all the preparations she 
had made for his comfort. Why does he 
not come ? ” 

Near the close of the third session he came 
quickly enough, summoned by his father’s 
short fatal illness. 

Some time passed before she observed any- 
thing in him but natural cnanges after so 
long an absence and grief over his great loss. 
He shut himself in his room for some days, 
having it out alone with himself, a young 
man’s first solemn accounting to a father 


134 Mettle of the Pasture 

who has become a memory. Gradually there 
began to emerge his new care of her, and 
tenderness, a boy's no more. And he stepped 
forward easily into his place as the head of 
affairs, as his brother s guardian. But as 
time wore on and she grew used to him as 
so much older in mere course of nature, and 
as graver by his loss and his fresh responsi- 
bilities, she made allowances for all these and 
brushed them away and beheld constantly 
beneath them that other change. 

Often while she sat near him when they 
were reading, she would look up and note 
that unaware a shadow had stolen out on his 
face. She studied that shadow. And one 
consolation she drew : that whatsoever the 
cause, it was nothing by which he felt dis- 
honored. At such moments her love broke 
over him with intolerable longings. She 
remembered things that her mother had told 
her about her father ; she recalled the lives 
of her brothers, his uncles. She yearned to 
say : “ What is it. Rowan ? You can tell me 
anything, anything. I know so much more 
than you believe." 


The Mettle of the Pasture 135 

But some restraint dissuaded her from 
bridging that reserve. She may have had 
the feeling that she spared him a good deal 
by her not knowing. 

For more than a year after his return he 
had kept aloof from society — going into 
town only when business demanded, and ac- 
cepting no invitations to the gayeties of the 
neighborhood. He liked rather to have his 
friends come out to stay with him : sometimes 
he was off with them for days during the fish- 
ing and hunting seasons. Care of the farm and 
its stock occupied a good deal of his leisure, 
and there were times when he worked hard 
in the fields — she thought so unnecessarily. 
Incessant activity of some kind had become 
his craving — the only relief. 

She became uneasy, she disapproved. For 
a while she allowed things to have their way, 
but later she interfered — though as always 
with her silent strength and irresistible gen- 
tleness. Making no comment upon his 
changed habits and altered tastes, giving no 
sign of her own purposes, she began the 
second year of his home-coming to accept 


136 The Mettle of the Pasture 

invitations for herself and formally reentered 
her social world ; reassumed her own leader- 
ship there ; demanded him as her escort ; 
often filled the house with young guests ; 
made it for his generation what the home of 
her girlhood had been to her — in all sacri- 
ficing for him the gravity and love of seclu- 
sion which had settled over her during the 
solemn years, years which she knew to be 
parts of a still more solemn future. 

She succeeded. She saw him again more 
nearly what he had been before the college 
days — more nearly developing that type of 
life which belonged to him and to his position. 

Finally she saw him in love as she wished ; 
and at this point she gradually withdrew from 
society again, feeling that he needed her no 
more. 


VI 


The noise of wheels on the gravel drive- 
way of the lawn brought the reflections of 
Mrs. Meredith to an abrupt close. The 
sound was extremely unpleasant to her ; she 
did not feel in a mood to entertain callers 
this morning. Rising with regret, she looked 
out. The brougham of Mrs. Conyers, flash- 
ing in the sun, was being driven toward the 
house — was being driven rapidly, as though 
speed meant an urgency. 

If Mrs. Meredith desired no visitor at all, 
she particularly disliked the appearance of 
this one. Rowan’s words to her were full 
of meaning that she did not understand ; 
but they rendered it clear at least that his 
love affair had been interrupted, if not wholly 
ended. She could not believe this due to 
any fault of his ; and friendly relations with 
the Conyers family were for her instantly at 
an end with any wrong done him. 

She summoned a maid and instructed her 


138 The Mettle of the Pasture 

regarding the room in which the visitor was 
to be received (not in the parlors ; they were 
too full of solemn memories this morning). 
Then she passed down the long hall to her 
bedchamber. 

The intimacy between these ladies was 
susceptible of exact analysis ; every element 
comprising it could have been valued as 
upon a quantitative scale. It did not involve 
any of those incalculable forces which consti- 
tute friendship — a noble mystery remaining 
forever beyond unravelling. 

They found the first basis of their intimacy 
in a common wish for the union of their off- 
springs. This subject had never been men- 
tioned between them. Mrs. Conyers would 
have discussed it had she dared ; but she 
knew at least the attitude of the other. Fur- 
thermore, Mrs. Meredith brought to this 
association a beautiful weakness : she was 
endowed with all but preternatural insight 
into what is fine in human nature, but had 
slight power of discovering what is base ; 
she seemed endowed with far-sightedness in 
high, clear, luminous atmospheres, but was 


The Mettle of the Pasture 139 

short-sighted in moral twilights. She was, 
therefore, no judge of the character of her 
intimate. As for that lady's reputation, this 
was well known to her ; but she screened 
herself against this reputation behind what 
she believed to be her own personal dis- 
covery of unsuspected virtues in the mis- 
judged. She probably experienced as much 
pride in publicly declaring the misjudged a 
better woman than she was reputed, as that 
lady would have felt in secretly declaring her 
to be a worse one. 

On the part of Mrs. Conyers, the motives 
which she brought to the association pre- 
sented nothing that must be captured and 
brought down from the heights; she was 
usually to be explained by mining rather 
than mounting. Whatever else she might 
not have been, she was always ore ; never 
rainbows. 

Throughout bird and animal and insect 
life there runs what is recognized as the law 
of protective assimilation. It represents the 
necessity under which a creature lives to pre- 
tend to be something else as a condition of 


140 The Mettle of the Pasture 

continuing to be itself. The rose-colored 
flamingo, curving its long neck in volutions 
that suggest the petals of a corolla, burying 
its head under its wing and lifting one leg 
out of sight, becomes a rank, marvellous 
flower, blooming on too slight a stalk in its 
marshes. An insect turns itself into one of 
the dried twigs of a dead stick. On the 
margin of a shadowed pool the frog is hued 
like moss - — greenness beside greenness. 
Mrs. Conyers availed herself of a kind of 
protective assimilation when she exposed 
herself to the environment of Mrs. Mere- 
dith, adopting devices by which she would 
be taken for any object in nature but herself. 

Two familiar devices were applied to her 
habiliments and her conversations. Mrs. 
Meredith always dressed well to the natural 
limit of her bountiful years ; Mrs. Conyers 
usually dressed more than well and more 
than a generation behind hers. On occa- 
sions when she visited Rowan’s unconcealed 
mother, she allowed time to make regarding 
herself almost an honest declaration. Ordi- 
narily she was a rose nearly ready to drop. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 14 1 

which is bound with a thread of its own 
color to look as much as possible like a bud 
that is nearly ready to open. 

Her conversations were even more assid- 
uously tinged and fashioned by the needs of 
accommodation. Sometimes she sat in Mrs. 
Meredith’s parlors as a soul sick of the 
world’s vanities, an urban spirit that hun- 
gered for country righteousness. During a 
walk one day through the gardens she paused 
under the boughs of a weeping willow and 
recited, Cromwell, I charge thee fling away 
ambition — ” She uniformly imparted to 
Mrs. Meredith the assurance that with her 
alone she could lay aside all disguises. 

This morning she alighted from her car- 
riage at the end of the pavement behind 
some tall evergreens. As she walked toward 
the house, though absorbed with a serious 
purpose, she continued to be as observant 
of everything as usual. Had an eye been 
observant of her, it would have been noticed 
that Mrs. Conyers in all her self-conceal- 
ment did not conceal one thing — her walk. 
This one element of her conduct had its 


142 The Mettle 'of the Pasture 

curious psychology. She had never been 
able to forget that certain scandals set going 
many years before, had altered the course of 
Mrs. Meredith’s life and of the lives of 
some others. After a lapse of so long a 
time she had no fear now that she should 
be discovered. Nevertheless it was impos- 
sible for her ever to approach this house 
without “ coming delicately.” She came 
delicately ” in the same sense that Agag, 
king of Amalek, walked when he was on 
his way to Saul, who was about to hew him 
to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. 

She approached the house now, observant 
of everything as she tripped. Had a shutter 
been hung awry ; if a window shade had 
been drawn too low or a pane of glass had 
not sparkled, or there had been loose paper 
on the ground or moulted feathers on the 
bricks, she would have discovered this with 
the victorious satisfaction of finding fault. 
But orderliness prevailed. No ; the mat at 
the front door had been displaced by Rowan’s 
foot as he had hurried from the house. (The 
impulse was irresistible : she adjusted it with 


The Mettle of the Pasture 143 

her toe and planted herself on it with a sense 
of triumph.) 

As she took out her own and Isabel’s 
cards, she turned and looked out across 
the old estate. This was the home she had 
designed for Isabel : the land, the house, the 
silver, the glass, the memories, the distinc- 
tion — they must all be Isabel’s. 

Some time passed before Mrs. Meredith 
appeared. Always a woman of dignity and 
reserve, she had never before in her life 
perhaps worn a demeanor so dignified and 
reserved. Her nature called for peace ; but 
if Rowan had been wronged, then there was 
no peace — and a sacred war is a cruel one. 
The instant that the two ladies confronted 
each other, each realized that each concealed 
something from the other. This discovery 
instantly made Mrs. Meredith cooler still ; 
it rendered Mrs. Conyers more cordial. 

“ Isabel regretted that she could not 
come.” 

“ I am sorry.” The tone called for the 
dismissal of the subject. 

This is scarcely a visit to you,” Mrs. 


144 Mettle of the Pasture 

Conyers went on ; I have been paying one 
of my usual pastoral calls : I have been to 
Ambrose Webb’s to see if my cows are 
ready to return to town. Strawberries are 
ripe and strawberries call for more cream, 
and more cream calls for more calves, and 
more calves call for — well, we hav’-e all 
heard them ! I do not understand how a 
man who looks like Ambrose can so stimu- 
late cattle. Of course my cows are not as 
fine and fat as Rowan’s — that is not to 
be expected. The country is looking very 
beautiful. I never come for a drive with- 
out regretting that I live in town.” (She 
would have found the country intolerable 
for the same reason that causes criminals to 
flock to cities.) 

Constraint deepened as the visit was pro- 
longed. Mrs. Conyers begged Mrs. Mere- 
dith for a recipe that she knew to be bad; 
and when Mrs. Meredith had left the room 
for it, she rose and looked eagerly out of the 
windows for any sign of Rowan. When 
Mrs. Meredith returned, for the same rea- 
son she asked to be taken into the garden, 


The Mettle of the Pasture 145 

wnich was in its splendor of bloom. Mrs. 
Meredith culled for her a few of the most 
resplendent blossoms — she could not have 
offered to any one anything less. Mrs. Con- 
yers was careful not to pin any one of these 
on ; she had discovered that she possessed 
a peculiarity known to some florists and con- 
cealed by those women who suffer from it — 
that flowers soon wilt when worn by them. 

Meanwhile as they walked she talked of 
flowers, of housekeeping ; she discussed 
Marguerite’s coming ball and Dent’s brill- 
iant graduation. She enlarged upon this, 
praising Dent to the disparagement of her 
own grandson Victor, now in retreat from 
college on account of an injury received as 
centre-rush in his football team. Victor, she 
protested, was above education ; his college 
was a kind of dormitory to athletics. 

When we are most earnest ourselves, we 
are surest to feel the lack of earnestness in 
others ; sincerity stirred to the depths will 
tolerate nothing less. It thus becomes a 
new test of a companion. So a weak solution 
may not reveal a poison when a strong one 


146 The Mettle of the Pasture 

will. Mrs. Meredith felt this morning as 
never before the real nature of the woman 
over whom for years she had tried to throw 
a concealing charity ; and Mrs. Conyers saw 
as never before in what an impossible soil 
she had tried to plant poison oak and call it 
castle ivy. 

The ladies parted with coldness. 

When she was once more seated in her 
carriage, Mrs. Conyers thrust her head 
through the window and told the coachman 
to drive slowly. She tossed the recipe into 
a pine tree and took in her head. Then she 
caught hold of a brown silk cord attached to 
a little brown silk curtain in the front of the 
brougham opposite her face. It sprang aside, 
revealing a little toilette mirror. On the 
cushion beside her lay something under a 
spread newspaper. She quickly drew off her 
sombre visiting gloves ; and lifting the news- 
paper, revealed under it a fresh pair of gloves, 
pearl-colored. She worked her tinted hands 
nimbly into these. Then she took out a 
rose-colored scarf or shawl as light as a 
summer cloud. This she threw round her 


The Mettle of the Pasture 147 

shoulders; it added no warmth, it added 
color, meaning. There were a few other 
youthward changes and additions ; and then 
the brown silk curtain closed over the mirror. 

Another woman leaned back in a corner 
of the brougham. By a trick of the face she 
had juggled away a generation of her years. 
The hands were moved backward on the 
horologe of mortality as we move backward 
the pointers on the dial of a clock : her face 
ticked at the hour of two in the afternoon 
of life instead of half-past five. 

There was still time enough left to be 
malicious. 


VII 


One morning about a week later she en- 
tered her carriage and was driven rapidly 
away. A soft-faced, middle-aged woman 
with gray ringlets and nervous eyes stepped 
timorously upon the veranda and watched 
her departure with an expression of relief — 
Miss Harriet Crane, the unredeemed daugh- 
ter of the household. 

She had been the only fruit of her mother’s 
first marriage and she still remained attached 
to the parental stem despite the most vigor- 
ous wavings and shakings of that stem to 
shed its own product. Nearly fifty years of 
wintry neglect and summer scorching had 
not availed to disjoin Harriet from organic 
dependence upon her mother. And of all 
conceivable failings in a child of hers that 
mother could have found none so hard to 
forgive as the failure to attract a man in a 
world full of men nearly all bent upon being 
attracted. 

It was by no choice of Harriet’s that she 
n48 


The Mettle of the Pasture 149 

was born of a woman who valued children 
as a kind of social collateral, high-class in- 
vestments to mature after long periods with 
at least reasonable profits for the original 
investors. Nor was it by any volition of 
hers that she had commended herself to her 
mother in the beginning by being a beautiful 
and healthful child: initial pledge that she 
could be relied upon to turn out lucrative in 
the end. The parent herself was secretly 
astounded that she had given birth to a child 
of so seraphic a disposition. 

Trouble and disappointment began with 
education, for education is long stout resist- 
ance. You cannot polish highly a stone that 
is not hard enough to resist being highly 
polished. Harriet’s soft nature gave way 
before the advance of the serried phalanxes 
of knowledge : learning passed her by ; and 
she like the many passed through school.” 

By this time her mother had grown alarmed 
and she brought Harriet out prematurely, 
that she might be wedded before, so to speak, 
she was discovered. Meantime Mrs. Crane 
herself had married a second and a third 


150 The Mettle of the Pasture 

time, with daughters by the last husband 
who were little younger than her eldest ; 
and she laughingly protested that nothing is 
more confusing to a woman than to have in 
the house children by two husbands. Hence 
further reason for desiring immediate nup- 
tials : she could remove from the parlors the 
trace of bi-marital collaboration. 

At first only the most brilliant matches 
were planned for Harriet ; these one by one 
unaccountably came to naught. Later the 
mother began to fall back upon those young 
men who should be glad to embrace such an 
opportunity ; but these less desirable young 
men failed to take that peculiar view of their 
destinies. In the meanwhile the Misses 
Conyers had come on as debutantes and 
were soon bespoken. At the marriage of 
the youngest, Harriet’s mother had her act 
as first bridesmaid and dressed her, already 
fading, as though she were the very spirit of 
April. 

The other sisters were long since gone, 
scattered north and south with half-grown 
families ; and the big house was almost 


The Mettle of the Pasture 15 1 

empty save when they came in troops to 
visit it. 

Harriet’s downward career as an article of 
human merchandise had passed through what 
are perhaps not wholly unrecognizable stages. 
At first she had been displayed near the en- 
trance for immediate purchase by the unwary. 
Then she had been marked down as some- 
thing that might be secured at a reduced 
price ; but intending buyers preferred to pay 
more. By and by even this label was taken 
off and she became a remnant of stock for 
which there was no convenient space — being 
moved from shelf to shelf, always a little 
more shop-worn, a little more out of style. 
What was really needed was an auction. 

Mrs. Conyers did not take much to heart 
the teachings of her Bible ; but it had at 
least defined for her one point of view: all 
creatures worth saving had been saved in 
pairs. 

Bitter as were those years for Harriet, 
others more humiliating followed. The 
maternal attempts having been discontinued, 
she, desperate with slights and insults, had 


152 The Mettle of the Pasture 

put forth some efforts of her own. But it 
was as though one had been placed in a 
boat without oars and told to row for life : 
the little boat under the influence of cosmic 
tides had merely drifted into shallows and 
now lay there — forgotten. 

This morning as she sat idly rocking on 
the veranda, she felt that negative happiness 
which consists in the disappearance of a 
positively disagreeable thing. Then she be- 
gan to study how she should spend the 
forenoon most agreeably. Isabel was up- 
stairs ; she would have been perfectly satis- 
fied to talk with her ; but for several 
mornings Isabel had shown unmistakable 
preference to be let alone ; and in the 
school of life Harriet had attained the 
highest proficiency in one branch of knowl- 
edge at least — never to get in anybody’s 
way. Victor Fielding lay under the trees 
with a pipe and a book, but she never 
ventured near him. 

So Harriet bethought herself of a certain 
friend of hers on the other side of town. 
Miss Anna Hardage, who lived with her 


The Mettle of the Pasture 153 

brother. Professor Hardage — two people to 
trust. 

She put on her hat which unfortunately 
she had chosen to trim herself, tied a white 
veil across the upper part of her face and 
got out her second-best pair of gloves : Har- 
riet kept her best gloves for her enemies. 
In the front yard she pulled a handful of 
white lilacs (there was some defect here or 
she would never have carried white lilacs 
in soiled white gloves) ; and passed out of 
the gate. Her eyes were lighted up with 
anticipations, but ill must have overtaken 
her in transit ; for when she was seated with 
Miss Anna in a little side porch looking out 
on the little green yard, they were dimmed 
with tears. 

“The same old story,’* she complained 
vehemently. “ The same ridicule that has 
been dinned into my ears since I was a 
child.” 

“ Ah, now, somebody has been teasing her 
about being an old maid,” said Miss Anna 
to herself, recognizing the signs. 

“ This world is a very unprincipled place 


154 The Mettle of the Pasture 

to live in,” continued Harriet, her rage 
curdling into philosophy. 

“ Ah, but it is the best there is just yet,” 
maintained Miss Anna, stoutly. By and 
by we may all be able to do better — those 
of us who get the chance.” 

“ What shall I care then ? ” said Harriet, 
scouting eternity as a palliative of contem- 
porary woes. 

‘^Wait! you are tired and you have lost 
your temper from thirst : children always do. 
ril bring something to cure you, fresh from 
the country, fresh from i^mbrose Webb’s 
farm. Besides, you have a dark shade of 
the blues, my dear; and this remedy is 
capital for the blues. You have but to sip 
a glass slowly — and where are they ? ” And 
she hastened into the house. 

She returned with two glasses of cool 
buttermilk. 

The words and the deed were character- 
istic of one of the most wholesome women 
that ever helped to straighten out a crooked 
and to cool a feverish world. Miss Anna’s 
very appearance allayed irritation and became 


The Mettle of the Pasture 155 

a provocation to good health, to good sense. 
Her mission in life seemed not so much to 
distribute honey as to sprinkle salt, to render 
things salubrious, to enable them to keep 
their tonic naturalness. Not within the 
range of womankind could so marked a con- 
trast have been found for Harriet as in this 
maiden lady of her own age, who was her 
most patient friend and who supported her 
clinging nature (which still could not 
resist the attempt to bloom) as an autumn 
cornstalk supports a frost-nipped morning- 
glory. 

If words of love had ever been whispered 
into Miss Anna's ear, no human being knew 
it now : but perhaps her heart also had its 
under chamber sealed with tears. Women 
not even behind her back jested at her 
spinsterhood ; and when that is true, a 
miracle takes place indeed. No doubt Miss 
Anna was a miracle, not belonging to any 
country, race, or age; being one of those 
offerings to the world which nature now and 
then draws from the deeps of womanhood : 
a pure gift of God. 


156 The Mettle of the Pasture 


The two old maids drained their rectify- 
ing beverage in the shady porch. Whether 
from Miss Anna’s faith in it or from the 
simple health-giving of her presence, Harriet 
passed through a process of healing ; and as 
she handed back the empty glass, she smiled 
gratefully into Miss Anna’s sparkling brown 
eyes. Nature had been merciful to her in 
this, that she was as easily healed as wounded. 
She now returned to the subject which had 
so irritated her, as we rub pleasantly a spot 
from which a thorn has been extracted. 

“ What do I care ? ” she said, straighten- 
ing her hat as if to complete her recovery. 
“ But if there is one thing that can make 
me angry, Anna, it is the middle-aged, able- 
bodied unmarried men of this town. They 
are perfectly, perfectly contemptible.” 

“ Oh, come now ! ” cried Miss Anna, I 
am too old to talk about such silly things 
myself ; but what does a woman care whether 
she is married or not if she has had offers ? 
And you have had plenty of good offers, my 
dear.” 

“ No, 1 haven’t ! ” said Harriet, who 


The Mettle of the Pasture 157 

would tell the truth about this rankling 
misfortune. 

“Well, then, it was because the men knew 
you wouldn't have them.” 

“No, it wasn't!” said Harriet, “it was 
because they knew I would.” 

“Nonsense!” cried Miss Anna, impa- 
tiently. “You mustn't try to palm off so 
much mock modesty on me, Harriet.” 

“ Ah, I am too old to fib about it, Anna ! 
I leave that to my many sisters in mis- 
fortune.” 

Harriet looked at her friend's work curi- 
ously : she was darning Professor Hardage's 
socks. 

“ Why do you do that, Anna ? Socks are 
dirt cheap. You might as well go out into 
the country and darn sheep.” 

“ Ah, you have never had a brother — my 
brother ! so you cannot understand. I can 
feel his heels pressing against my stitches 
when he is walking a mile away. And I 
know whenever his fingers touch the buttons 
I have put back. Besides, don't you like to 
see people make bad things good, and things 


158 The Mettle of the Pasture 

with holes in them whole again ? Why, that 
is half the work of the world, Harriet ! It 
is. not his feet that make these holes,’" con- 
tinued Miss Anna, nicely, “ it is his shoes, 
his big, coarse shoes. And his clothes wear 
out so soon. He has a tailor who misfits 
him so exactly from year to year that there 
is never the slightest deviation in the botch. 
I know beforehand exactly where all the 
creases will begin. So I darn and mend. 
The idea of his big, soft, strong feet making 
holes in anything ! but, then, you have never 
tucked him in bed at night, my dear, so you 
know nothing about his feet.'" 

“ Not I ! ” said Harriet, embarrassed but 
not shocked. 

Miss Anna continued fondly in a lowered 
voice : You should have heard him the 
other day when he pulled open a drawer: 

‘ Why, Anna," he cried, ‘ where on earth did 
I get all these new socks ? The pair I left in 
here must have been alive : they’ve bred like 
rabbits.’ — ‘ Why, you’ve forgotten,’ I said. 

^ It’s your birthday ; and I have made you 
over, so that you are as good as new — me P ” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 159 

“ I never have to be reminded of my birth- 
day,” remarked Harriet, reflectively. “Anna, 
do you know that I have lived about one- 
eighth of the time since Columbus discovered 
America ; doesn't that sound awful ! ” 

“Ah, but you don't look it,'' said Miss 
Anna, artistically, “and that's the main 
object.'' 

“ Oh, I don't feel it,'' retorted Harriet, 
“ and that's the main object too. I'm as 
young as I ever was when I'm away from 
home ; but I declare, Anna, there are times 
when my mother can make me feel I'm about 
the oldest thing alive.'' 

“ Oh, come now ! you mustn't begin to 
talk that way, or I'll have to give you more 
of the antidote. You are threatened with a 
relapse.'' 

“No more,” ordered Harriet with a for- 
bidding hand, “and I repeat what I said. 
Of course you know I never gossip, Anna ; 
but when I talk to you, I do not feel as 
though I were talking to anybody.” 

“ Why, of course not,” said Miss Anna, 
trying to make the most of the compliment. 


i6o J'he Mettle of the Pasture 

“ I am nobody at all, just a mere nonentity, 
Harriet/^ 

“Anna,” said Harriet, after a pause of 
unusual length, “ if it had not been for my 
mother, I should have been married long 
ago. Thousands of worse-looking women, 
and of actually worse women, marry every 
year in this world and marry reasonably well. 
It was because she tried to marry me off : 
that was the bottom of the deviltry — the 
men saw through her.” 

“ I am afraid they did,” admitted Miss 
Anna, affably, looking down into a hole. 

“ Of course I know I am not brilliant,” 
conceded Harriet, “ but then I am never 
commonplace.” 

“ I should like to catch any one saying 
such a thing.” 

“ Even if I were, commonplace women 
always make the best wives ; do they not ? ” 

“ Oh, don’t ask that question in this 
porch,” exclaimed Miss Anna a little resent- 
fully. “ What do I know about it ! ” 

“ My mother thinks I am a weak woman,” 
continued Harriet, musingly. “ If my day 


The Mettle of the Pasture i6i 

ever comes, she will know that I am strong, 
Anna, strong^ 

“Ah, now, you must forgive your mother,’’ 
cried Miss Anna, having reached a familiar 
turn in this familiar dialogue. “Whatever 
she did, she did for the best. Certainly it 
was no fault of yours. But you could get 
married to-morrow if you wished and you 
know it, Harriet.” (Miss Anna offered up 
the usual little prayer to be forgiven.) 

The balm of those words worked through 
Harriet’s veins like a poison of joy. So 
long as a single human being expresses faith 
in us, what matters an unbelieving world ? 
Harriet regularly visited Miss Anna to hear 
these maddening syllables. She called for 
them as for the refilling of a prescription, 
which she preferred to get fresh every time 
rather than take home once for all and use 
as directed. 

Among a primitive folk who seemed to 
have more moral troubles than any other 
and to feel greater need of dismissing them 
by artificial means, there grew up the custom 

M 


1 62 The Mettle of the Pasture 

of using a curious expedient. They chose a 
beast of the field and upon its head symboli- 
cally piled all the moral hard-headedness of 
the several tribes ; after which the unoffend- 
ing brute was banished to the wilderness and 
the guilty multitude felt relieved. However 
crude that ancient method of transferring men- 
tal and moral burdens, it had at least this re- 
deeming feature : the early Hebrews heaped 
their sins upon a creature which they did 
not care for and sent it away. In modern 
times we pile our burdens upon our dearest 
fellow-creatures and keep them permanently 
near us for further use. What human being 
but has some other upon whom he nightly 
hangs his troubles as he hangs his different 
garments upon hooks and nails in the walls 
around him ? Have we ever suspected that 
when once the habit of transferring our 
troubles has become pleasant to us, we 
thereafter hunt for troubles in order that 
we may have them to transfer, that we mag- 
nify the little ones in order to win the credit 
of having large ones, and that we are wonder- 
fully refreshed by making other people de- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 163 

spondent for our sakes. Mercifully those 
upon whom the burdens are hung often 
become the better for their loads ; they may 
not live so long, but they are more useful. 
Thus in turn the weak develop the strong. 

For years Miss Anna had sacrificially de- 
meaned herself in the service of Harriet, who 
would now have felt herself a recreant friend 
unless she had promptly detailed every an- 
noyance of her life. She would go home, 
having left behind her the infinite little 
swarm of stinging things — having trans- 
ferred them to the head of Miss Anna, 
around which they buzzed until they died. 

There was this further peculiarity in 
Harriet’s visits : that the most important 
moments were the last; just as a doctor, 
after he has listened to the old story of his 
patient’s symptoms, and has prescribed and 
bandaged and patted and soothed, and has 
reached the door, turns, and noting a light 
in the patient’s eye hears him make a 
remark which shows that all the time he 
has really been thinking about something 
else. 


164 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Harriet now showed what was at the 
bottom of her own mind this morning : 

What I came to tell you about, Anna, 
is that for a week life at home has been 
unendurable. There is some trouble, some 
terrible trouble ; and no matter what goes 
wrong, my mother always holds me respon- 
sible. Positively there are times when I 
wonder whether I, without my knowing it, 
may not be the Origin of Evil.” 

Miss Anna made no comment, having closed 
the personal subject, and Harriet continued: 

It has scarcely been possible for me to 
stay in the house. Fortunately mother has 
been there very little herself. She goes and 
goes and drives and drives. Strange things 
have been happening. You know that 
Judge Morris has not missed coming on 
Sunday evening for years. Last night 
mother sat on the veranda waiting for him 
and he did not come. I know, for I 
watched. What have I to do but watch 
other people’s affairs ? — I have none of my 
own. I believe the trouble is all between 
Isabel and Rowan.” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 165 

Miss Anna dropped her work and looked 
at Harriet with s idden gravity. 

I can give you no idea of the real situa- 
tion because it is very dramatic ; and you 
know, Anna, I am not dramatic : I am merely 
historical : I tell my little tales. But at any 
rate Rowan has not been at the house for a 
week. He called last Sunday afternoon and 
Isabel refused to see him. I know ; because 
what have I to do but to interest myself in 
people who have affairs of interest ? Then 
Isabel had his picture in her room : it has 
been taken down. She had some of his 
books ; they are gone. The house has 
virtually been closed to company. Isabel 
has excused herself to callers. Mother was 
to give a tea ; the invitations were cancelled. 
At table Isabel and mother barely speak; 
but when I am not near, they talk a great 
deal to each other. And Isabel walks and 
walks and walks — in the garden, in her 
rooms. I have waked up two or three 
times at night and have seen her sitting at 
her window. She has always been very kind 
to me, Anna,” Harriet’s voice faltered, “ she 


1 66 The Mettle of the Pasture 

and you : and I cannot bear to see her so 
unhappy. You would never believe that a 
few days would make such a change in her. 
The other morning I went up lo her room 
with a little bunch of violets which I had 
gathered for her myself. When she opened 
the door, I saw that she was packing her 
trunks. And the dress she had ordered for 
Marguerite’s ball was lying on the bed ready 
to be put in. As I gave her the flowers she 
stood looking at them a long time ; then she 
kissed me without a word and quickly closed 
the door.” 

When Harriet had gone, Miss Anna sat 
awhile in her porch with a troubled face. 
Then she went softly into the library, the 
windows of which opened out upon the 
porch. Professor Hardage was standing on 
a short step-ladder before a bookcase, having 
just completed the arrangement of the top 
shelf. 

‘‘ Are you never going to get down ? ” 
she asked, looking up at him fondly. 

He closed the book with a snap and a 


The Mettle of the Pasture 167 

sigh and descended. Her anxious look re- 
called his attention. 

Did I not hear Harriet harrowing you up 
again with her troubles ? he asked. ‘‘You 
poor, kind soul that try to bear everybody’s ! ” 
“Never mind about what I bear! What 
can you bear for dinner ? ” 

“ It is an outrage, Anna 1 What right has 
she to make herself happier by making vou 
miserable, lengthening her life by shortening 
yours? For these worries always clip the 
thread of life at the end : that is where all 
the small debts are collected as one.” 

“ Now you must not be down on Harriet I 
It makes her happier; and as to the end of 
my life, I shall be there to attend to that.” 

“ Suppose I moved away with you to some 
other college entirely out of her reach ? ” 

“ I shall not suppose it because you will 
never do it. If you did, Harriet would 
simply find somebody else to teonfide in : 
she must tell everything to somebody. But 
if she told any one else, a good many of 
these stories would be all over town. She 
tells me and they get no further.” 


1 68 The Mettle of the Pasture 

What right have you to listen to scandal 
in order to suppress it ? ” 

“ I don’t even listen always : I merely 
stop the stream at its source.” 

I object to your offering your mind as 
the banks to such a stream. Still I’m glad 
that I live near the banks,” and he kissed 
his hand to her. 

‘‘ When one woman tells another any- 
thing and the other woman does not tell, 
remember it is not scandal — it is confidence.” 

‘‘ Then there is no such thing as confi- 
dence,” he replied, laughing. 

He turned toward his shelves. 

‘‘Now do rest,” she pleaded, “you look 
worn out.” 

She had a secret notion that books instead 
of putting life into people took it out of 
them. At best they performed the function 
of grindstones : they made you sharper, but 
they made you thinner — gave you more 
edge and left you less substance. 

“ I wish every one of those books had a 
lock and I had the bunch of keys.” 

“ Each has a lock and key ; but the key 


The Mettle of the Pasture 169 

cannot be put into your pocket, Anna, my 
dear; it is the unlocking mind. And you 
are not to speak of books as a collection of 
locks and keys ; they make up the living 
tree of knowledge, though of course there 
is very little of the tree in this particular 
bookcase.*’ 

‘‘ I don’t see any of it,” she remarked 
with wholesome literalness. 

“Well, here at the bottom are lexicons — 
think of them as roots and soil. Above 
them lie maps and atlases : consider them 
the surface. Then all books are history of 
course. But here is a great central trunk 
rising out of the surface which is called His- 
tory in especial. On each side of that, run- 
ning to the right and to the left, are main 
branches. Here for instance is the large 
limb of Philosophy — a very weighty limb in - 
deed. Here is the branch of Criticism. Here 
is a bough consisting principally of leaves on 
which live unnamed venomous little insects 
that poison them and die on them : their 
appointed place in creation.” 

“ And so there is no positive fruit any- 


1 70 The Mettle of the Pasture 

where/’ she insisted with her practical taste 
for the substantial. 

‘‘It is all food, Anna, edible and nourish- 
ing to different mouths and stomachs. Some 
very great men have lived on the roots of 
knowledge, the simplest roots. And here 
is poetry for dates and wild honey ; and 
novels for cocoanuts and mushrooms. And 
here is Religion : that is for manna.” 

“ What is at the very top ? ” 

His eyes rested upon the highest row of 
books. 

“ These are some of the loftiest growths, 
new buds of the mind opening toward the 
unknown. Each in its way shows the best 
that man, the earth-animal, has been able to 
accomplish. Here is a little volume for 
instance which tells what he ought to be — 
and never is. This small volume deals with 
the noblest ideals of the greatest civiliza- 
tions. Here is what one of the finest of the 
world’s teachers had to say about justice. 
Aspiration is at that end. This little book 
is on the sad loveliness of Greek girls ; and 
the volume beside it is about the brief 


The Mettle of the Pasture iji 

human chaplets that Horace and some other 
Romans wore — and then trod on. Thus 
the long story of light and shadow girdles 
the globe. If you were nothing but a spirit, 
Anna, and could float in here some night, 
perhaps you would see a mysterious radiance 
streaming upward from this shelf of books like 
the northern lights from behind the world — 
starting no one knows where, sweeping away 
we know not whither — search-light of the 
mortal, turned on dark eternity.'’ 

She stood a little behind him and watched 
him in silence, hiding her tenderness. 

If I were a book," she said thought- 
lessly, “ where should I be ? " 

He drew the fingers of one hand linger- 
ingly across the New Testament. 

Ah, now don't do that," she cried, “ or 
you shall have no dinner. Here, turn 
round ! look at the dust ! look at this 
cravat on one end ! look at these hands ! 
March upstairs." 

He laid his head over against hers. 

Stand up ! " she exclaimed, and ran out 
of the room. 


172 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Some minutes later she came back and 
took a seat near the door. There was flour 
on her elbow ; and she held a spoon in her 
hand. 

“Now you look like yourself/* she said, 
regarding him with approval as he sat read- 
ing before the bookcase. “ I started to tell 
you what Harriet told me.** 

He looked over the top of his book at 
her. 

“ I thought you said you stopped the 
stream at its source. Now you propose to 
let it run down to me — or up to me: how 
do you know it will not run past me ? ** 

“ Now don*t talk in that way,** she said, 
“this is something you will want to know,** 
and she related what Harriet had chronicled. 


VIII 


When she had left the room, he put back 
into its place the volume he was reading : its 
power over him was gone. All the voices 
of all his books, speaking to him from lands 
and ages, grew simultaneously hushed. He 
crossed the library to a front window open- 
ing upon the narrow rocky street and sat 
with his elbow on the window-sill, the large 
fingers of one large hand unconsciously 
searching his brow — that habit of men of 
thoughtful years, the smoothing out of the 
inner problems. 

The home of Professor Hardage was not 
in one of the best parts of the town. There 
was no wealth here, no society as it impres- 
sively calls itself; there were merely well- 
to-do human beings of ordinary intelligence 
and of kindly and unkindly natures. The 
houses, constructed of frame or of brick, were 
crowded wall against wall along the sidewalk ; 
in the rear were little gardens of flowers and 
173 


174 Mettle of the Pasture 

of vegetables. The street itself was well 
shaded ; and one forest tree, the roots of 
which bulged up through the mossy bricks 
of the pavement, hung its boughs before his 
windows. Throughout life he had found 
so many companions in the world outside of 
mere people, and this tree was one. From 
the month of leaves to the month of no 
leaves — the period of long hot vacations — 
when his eyes were tired and his brain and 
heart a little tired also, many a time it re- 
freshed him by all that it was and all that it 
stood for — this green tent of the woods 
arching itself before his treasured shelves. 
In it for him were thoughts of cool solitudes 
and of far-away greenness ; with tormenting 
visions also of old lands, the crystal-aired, 
purpling mountains of which, and valleys 
full of fable, he was used to trace out upon 
the map, but knew that he should never see 
or press with responsive feet. 

For travel was impossible to him. Part of 
his small salary went to the family of a brother ; 
part disappeared each year in the buying of 
books — at once his need and his passion ; 


The Mettle of the Pasture 175 

there were the expenses of living ; and Miss 
Anna always exacted appropriations. 

I know we have not much, but then my 
little boys and girls have nothing; and the 
poor must help the poorer.*' 

‘‘Very well," he would reply, “but some 
day you will be a beggar yourself, Anna." 

“ Oh, well then, if I am, I do not doubt 
that I shall be a thrifty old mendicant. And 
ril beg {ox you! So don't you be uneasy; 
and give me what I want." 

She always looked like a middle-aged 
Madonna in the garb of a housekeeper. 
Indeed, he was wont to call her the Ma- 
donna of the Dishes ; but at these times, and 
in truth for all deeper ways, he thought of 
her as the Madonna of the Motherless. 
Nevertheless he was resolute that out of 
this many-portioned salary something must 
yet be saved. 

“ The time will come," he threatened, 
“when some younger man will want my 
professorship — and will deserve it. I shall 
either be put out or I shall go out; and 
then — decrepitude, uselessness, penury, un- 


176 The Mettle of the Pasture 

less something has been hoarded. So, Anna, 
out of the frail uncertain little basketful of 
the apples of life which the college authori- 
ties present to me once a year, we must 
save a few for what may prove a long hard 
winter.” 

Professor Hardage was a man somewhat 
past fifty, of ordinary stature and heavy fig- 
ure, topped with an immense head. His 
was not what we call rather vaguely the 
American face. In Germany had he been 
seen issuing from the lecture rooms of a 
university, he would have been thought at 
home and his general status had been as- 
sumed : there being that about him which 
bespoke the scholar, one of those quiet self- 
effacing minds that have long since passed 
with entire humility into the service of vast 
themes. In social life the character of a 
noble master will in time stamp itself upon 
the look and manners of a domestic ; and in 
time the student acquires the lofty hall-mark 
of what he serves. 

It was this perhaps that immediately 
distinguished him and set him apart in 


The Mettle of the Pasture 177 

every company. The appreciative observer 
said at once : Here is a man who may not 
himself be great; but he is at least great 
enough to understand greatness : he is a 
follower of greatness.” 

As so often is the case with the strong 
American, he was self-made — that glory of 
our boasting. But we sometimes forget that 
an early life of hardship, while it may bring 
out what is best in a man, so often uses 
up his strength and burns his ambition to 
ashes in the fierce fight against odds too 
great. So that the powers which should 
have carried him far carry him only a little 
distance or leave him standing exhausted 
where he began. 

When Alfred Hardage was eighteen, he 
had turned his eyes toward a professorship in 
one of the great universities of his country ; 
before he was thirty he had won a professor- 
ship in the small but respectable college of 
his native town ; and now, when past fifty, 
he had never won anything more. For him 
ambition was like the deserted martin box 
in the corner of his yard : returning summers 

N 


178 The Mettle of the Pasture 

brought no more birds. Had his abilities 
been even more extraordinary, the result 
could not have been far otherwise. He had 
been compelled to forego for himself as a 
student the highest university training, and 
afterward to win such position as the world 
accorded him without the prestige of study 
abroad. 

It became his duty in his place to teach 
the Greek language and its literature ; some- 
times were added classes in Latin. This 
was the easier problem. The more dilhcult 
problem grew out of the demand, that he 
should live intimately in a world of much 
littleness and not himself become little ; feel 
interested in trivial minds at street corners, 
yet remain companion and critic of some of 
the greatest intellects of human kind; con- 
tend with occasional malice and jealousy in 
the college faculty, yet hold himself above 
these carrion passions ; retain his intellectual 
manhood, yet have his courses of study nar- 
rowed and made superficial for him ; be free 
yet submit to be patronized by some of his 
fellow-citizens, because they did him the 


The Mettle of the Pasture 179 

honor to employ him for so much a 
year as sage and moral exampler to their 
sons. 

Usually one of two fates overtakes the 
obscure professional scholar in this country : 
either he shrinks to the dimensions of a true 
villager and deserts the vastness of his library; 
or he repudiates the village and becomes a 
cosmopolitan recluse — lonely toiler among 
his books. Few possess the breadth and 
equipoise which will enable them to pass 
from day to day along mental paths, which 
have the Forum of Augustus or the Groves 
of the Academy at one end and the babbling 
square of a modern town at the other; re- 
maining equally at home amid ancient ideals 
and everyday realities. 

It was the fate of the recluse that threatened 
him. He had been born with the scholar's 
temperament — this furnished the direction; 
before he had reached the age of twenty-five 
he had lost his wife and two sons — that 
furrowed the tendency. During the years 
immediately following he had tried to fill an 
immense void of the heart with immense 


i8o The Mettle of the Pasture 

labors of the intellect. The void remained ; 
yet undoubtedly compensation for loneliness 
had been found in the fixing of his affections 
upon what can never die — the inexhaustible 
delight of learning. 

Thus the life of the book-worm awaited 
him but for an interference excellent and 
salutary and irresistible. This was the con- 
stant companionship of a sister whose nature 
enabled her to find its complete universe in 
the only world that she had ever known : 
she walking ever broad-minded through the 
narrowness of her little town ; remaining 
white though often threading its soiling 
ways ; and from every life which touched 
hers, however crippled and confined, extract- 
ing its significance instead of its insignificance, 
shy harmonies instead of the easy discords 
which can so palpably be struck by any 
passing hand. 

It was due to her influence, therefore, that 
his life achieved the twofold development 
which left him normal in the middle years ; 
the fresh pursuing scholar still but a man 
practically welded to the people among whom 


The Mettle of the Pasture i8i 

he lived — receiving their best and giving 
his best. 

But we cannot send our hearts out to play 
at large among our kind, without their com- 
ing to choose sooner or later playfellows to 
be loved more than the rest. 

Two intimacies entered into the life of 
Professor Hardage. The first of these had 
been formed many years before with Judge 
Ravenel Morris. They had discovered each 
other by drifting as lonely men do in the 
world; each being without family ties, each 
loving literature, each having empty hours. 
The bond between them had strengthened, 
until it had become to each a bond of 
strength indeed, mighty and uplifting. 

The other intimacy was one of those for 
which human speech will never, perhaps, be 
called upon to body forth its describing 
word. In the psychology of feeling there 
are states which we gladly choose to leave 
unlanguaged. Vast and deep-sounding as is 
the orchestra of words, there are scores 
which we never fling upon such instruments 
— realities that lie outside the possibility 


1 82 The Mettle of the Pasture 

and the desirability of utterance as there are 
rays of the sun that fall outside the visible 
spectrum of solar light. 

What description can be given in words of 
that bond between two, when the woman 
stands near the foot of the upward slope of 
life, and the man is already passing down on 
the sunset side, with lengthening afternoon 
shadows on the gray of his temples — be- 
tween them the cold separating peaks of a 
generation? 

Such a generation of toiling years separated 
Professor Hardage from Isabel Conyers. 
When, at the age of twenty, she returned 
after years of absence in an eastern college — 
it was a tradition of her family that its women 
should be brilliantly educated — he verged 
upon fifty. To his youthful desires that 
interval was nothing ; but to his disciplined 
judgment it was everything. 

‘‘ Even though it could be,” he said to 
himself, “ it should not be, and therefore it 
shall not.” 

His was an idealism that often leaves its 
holder poor indeed save in the possession of 


The Mettle of the Pasture 183 

its own incorruptible wealth. No doubt also 
the life-long study of the ideals of classic 
time came to his guidance now with their 
admonitions of exquisite balance, their mod- 
eration and essential justness. 

But after he had given up all hope of her, 
he did not hesitate to draw her to him in 
other ways ; and there was that which drew 
her unfathomably to him — all the more 
securely since in her mind there was no 
thought that the bond between them would 
ever involve the possibility of dove and 
marriage. 

His library became another home to her. 
One winter she read Greek with him — 
authors not in her college course. After- 
ward he read much more Greek to her. 
Then they laid Greek aside, and he took 
her through the history of its literature and 
through that other noble one, its deathless 
twin. 

When she was not actually present, he yet 
took her with him through the wide regions of 
his studies — set her figure in old Greek land- 
scapes and surrounded it with dim shapes of 


184 The Mettle of the Pasture 

loveliness — saw her sometimes as the per- 
fection that went into marble — made her a 
portion of legend and story, linking her with 
Nausicaa and Andromache and the lost others. 
Then quitting antiquity with her altogether, 
he passed downward with her into the days 
of chivalry, brought her to Arthur’s court, 
and invested her with one character after 
another, trying her by the ladies of knightly 
ideals — reading her between the lines in all 
the king’s idyls. 

But last and best, seeing her in the clear 
white light of her own country and time — 
as the spirit of American girlhood, pure, 
refined, faultlessly proportioned in mental 
and physical health, full of kindness, full of 
happiness, made for love, made for mother- 
hood. All this he did in his hopeless and 
idealizing worship of her; and all this and 
more he hid away : for he too had his crypt. 

So watching her and watching vainly over 
her, he was the first to see that she was 
loved and that her nature was turning away 
from him, from all that he could offer — sub- 
dued by that one other call. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 185 

‘"Now, Fates,” he said, “by whatsoever 
names men have blindly prayed to you ; 
you that love to strike at perfection, and pass 
over a multitude of the ordinary to reach 
the rare, stand off for a few years ! Let 
them be happy together in their love, their 
marriage, and their young children. Let the 
threads run freely and be joyously interwoven. 
Have mercy at least for a few years ! ” 

A carriage turned a corner of the street 
and was driven to the door. Isabel got out, 
and entered the hall without ringing. 

He met her there and as she laid her 
hands in his without a word, he held them 
and looked at her without a word. He 
could scarcely believe that in a few days her 
life could so have drooped as under a dread- 
ful blight. 

“ I have come to say good-by,” and with 
a quiver of the lips she turned her face aside 
and brushed past him, entering the library. 

He drew his own chair close to hers when 
she had seated herself. 

“ I thought you and your grandmother 
were going later : is not this unexpected ? ” 


1 86 The Mettle of the Pasture 


Yes, It is very unexpected.’* 

“ But of course she is going with you ? ” 
“No, I am going alone.” 

“ For the summer ? ” 

“Yes, for the summer. I suppose fora 
long time.” 

She continued to sit with her cheek 
leaning against the back of the chair, her 
eyes directed outward through the windows. 
He asked reluctantly : 

“ Is there any trouble ? ” 

“ Yes, there is trouble.” 

“ Can you tell me what it is ? ” 

“No, I cannot tell you what it is. I can- 
not tell any one what it is.” 

“ Is there anything I can do ? ” 

“ No, there is nothing you can do. There 
is nothing any one can do.” 

Silence followed for some time. He 
smiled at her sadly: 

“ Shall I tell you what the trouble is ? ” 

“ You do not know what it is. I believe 
I wish you did know. But I cannot tell 
you.” 

“ Is it not Rowan ? ” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 187 

She waited awhile without change of 
posture and answered at length without 
change of tone : 

‘‘ Yes, it is Rowan.** 

The stillness of the room became intense 
and prolonged; the rustling of the leaves 
about the window sounded like noise. 

Are you not going to marry him, 
Isabel ? ** 

‘‘No, I am not going to marry him. I 
am never going to marry him.** 

She stretched out her hand helplessly to 
him. He would not take it and it fell to 
her side : at that moment he did not dare. 
But of what use is it to have kept faith with 
high ideals through trying years if they do 
not reward us at last with strength in the 
crises of character ? No doubt they rewarded 
him now : later he reached down and took 
her hand and held it tenderly. 

“You must not go away. You must be 
reconciled to him. Otherwise it will sadden 
your whole summer. And it will sadden 
his.** 

“ Sadden the whole summer,** she repeated, 


1 88 The Mettle of the Pasture 


“ a summer ? It will sadden a life. If there 
is eternity, it will sadden eternity.” 

Is it so serious ? ” 

‘‘Yes, it is as serious as anything could 
be.” 

After a while she sat up wearily and turned 
her face to him for the first time. 

“ Cannot you help me ? ” she asked. “ I 
do not believe I can bear this. I do not 
believe I can bear it.” 

Perhaps it is the doctors who hear that 
tone oftenest — little wonder that they are 
men so often with sad or with calloused faces. 

“ What can I do ? ” 

“ I do not know what you can do. But 
cannot you do something? You were the 
only person in the world that I could go to. 
I did not think I could ever come to you ; 
but I had to come. Help me.” 

He perceived that commonplace counsel 
would be better than no counsel at all. 

“ Isabel,” he asked, “ are you suffering 
because you have wronged Rowan or be- 
cause you think he has wronged you ? ” 

“No, no, no,” she cried, covering her 


The Mettle of the Pasture 189 

face with her hands, I have not wronged 
him ! I have not wronged any one ! He has 
wronged me ! ” 

Did he ever wrong you before ? ” 

No, he never wronged me before. But 
this covers everything — the whole past.” 

Have you ever had any great trouble 
before, Isabel ? ” 

No, I have never had any great trouble 
before. At times in my life I may have 
thought I had, but now I know.” 

You do not need to be told that sooner 
or later all of us have troubles that we think 
we cannot bear.” 

She shook her head wearily : ‘Ht does 
not do any good to think of that ! It does 
not help me in the least ! ” 

“ But it does help if there is any one to 
whom we can tell our troubles.” 

“ I cannot tell mine.” 

Cannot you tell me ? ” 

“No, I believe I wish you knew, but I 
could not tell you. No, I do not even wish 
you to know.” 

“ Have you seen Kate ? ” 


190 The Mettle of the Pasture 

She covered her face with her hands again: 
“No, no, no/* she cried, “not Kate!’* Then 
she looked up at him with eyes suddenly 
kindling: “ Have you heard what Kate’s life 
has been since her marriage ? ” 

“We have all heard, I suppose.” 

“ She has never spoken a word against 
him — not even to me from whom she 
never had a secret. How could I go to 
her about Rowan ? Even if she had con- 
fided in me, I could not tell her this.” 

“If you. are going away, change of scene 
will help you to forget it.” 

“ No, it will help me to remember.” 

“ There is prayer, Isabel.” 

“ I know there is prayer. But prayer 
does not do any good. It has nothing to 
do with this.” 

“ Enter as soon as possible into the pleas- 
ures of the people you are to visit.” 

“ I cannot 1 I do not wish for pleasure.” 

“ Isabel,” he said at last, “ forgive him.” 

“ I cannot forgive him.” 

“ Have you tried ? ” 

“No, I cannot try. If I forgave him, it 


The Mettle of the Pasture 191 

would only be a change in me : it would not 
change him : it would not undo what he has 
done.” 

‘‘ Do you know the necessity of self- 
sacrifice ? ” 

“ But how can I sacrifice what is best in 
me without lowering myself? Is it a virtue 
in a woman to throw away what she holds to 
be highest ? ” 

Remember,” he said, returning to the 
point, that, if you forgive him, you become 
changed yourself. You no longer see what 
he has done as you see it now. That is the 
beauty of forgiveness : it enables us better 
to understand those whom we have forgiven. 
Perhaps it will enable you to put yourself 
in his place.” 

She put her hands to her eyes with a 
shudder: ^'You do not know what you are 
saying,” she cried, and rose. 

‘‘Then trust it all to time,” he said finally, 
“ that is best ! Time alone solves so much. 
Wait ! Do not act ! Think and feel as lit- 
tle as possible. Give time its merciful chance, 
ril come to see you.” 


192 The Mettle of the Pasture 

They had moved toward the door. She 
drew off her glove which she was putting 
on and laid her hand once more in his. 

Time can change nothing. I have 
decided.'’ 

As she was going down the steps to the 
carriage, she turned and came back. 

‘‘ Do not come to see me ! I shall come 
to you to say good-by. It is better for you 
not to come to the house just now. I might 
not be able to see you." 

Isabel had the carriage driven to the 
Osborns*. 

The house was situated in a pleasant street 
of delightful residences. It had been newly 
built on an old foundation as a bridal present 
to Kate from her father. She had furnished it 
with a young wife's pride and delight and she 
had lined it throughout with thoughts of in- 
communicable tenderness about the life his- 
tory just beginning. Now, people driving past 
(and there were few in town who did not know) 
looked at it as already a prison and a doom. 

Kate was sitting in the hall with some 
work in her lap. Seeing Isabel she sprang 


The Mettle of the Pasture 19 3 

up and met her at the door, greeting her 
as though she herself were the happiest of 
wives. 

Do you know how long it has been since 
you were here ? she exclaimed chidingly. 
‘‘ I had not realized how soon young married 
people can be forgotten and pushed aside.” 

‘^Forget you, dearest! I have never 
thought of you so much as since I was 
here last.” 

“ Ah,” thought Kate to herself, “ she has 
heard. She has begun to feel sorry for me 
and has begun to stay away as people avoid 
the unhappy.” 

But the two friends, each smiling into the 
other’s eyes, their arms around each other, 
passed into the parlors. 

“ Now that you are here at last, I shall 
keep you,” said Kate, rising from the seat 
they had taken. I will send the carriage 
home. George cannot be here to lunch and 
we shall have it all to ourselves as we used 
to when we were girls together.” 

No,” exclaimed Isabel, drawing her down 
into the seat again, ‘‘ I cannot stay. I had 


194 The Mettle of the Pasture 

only a few moments and drove by just to 
speak to you, just to tell you how much I 
love you.” 

Kate’s face changed and she dropped her 
eyes. ‘‘Is so little of me so much nowa- 
days ? ” she asked, feeling as though the 
friendship of a lifetime were indeed be- 
ginning to fail her along with other things. 

“No, no, no,” cried Isabel. “I wish we 
could never be separated.” 

She rose quickly and went over to the 
piano and began to turn over the music. 
“ It seems so long since I heard any music. 
What has become of it ? Has it all gone 
out of life ? I feel as though there were 
none any more.” 

Kate came over and looked at one piece 
of music after another irresolutely. 

“ I have not touched the piano for weeks.” 

She sat down and her fingers wandered 
forcedly through a few chords. Isabel stepped 
quickly to her side and laid restraining hands 
softly upon hers : “ No; not to-day.” 

Kate rose with averted face: “No; not any 
music to-day ! ” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 195 

The friends returned to their seat, on which 
Kate left her work. She took it up and for 
a few moments Isabel watched her in silence. 

‘‘When did you see Rowan?” 

“You know he lives in the country,” re- 
plied Isabel, with an air of defensive gayety. 

“ And does he never come to town ? ” 

“ How should I know ? ” 

Kate took this seriously and her head 
sank lower over her work : “ Ah,” she 
thought to herself, “she will not confide in 
me any longer. She keeps her secrets from 
me — me who shared them all my life.” 

“ What is it you are making ? ” 

Isabel stretched out her hand, but Kate 
with a cry threw her breast downward upon 
her work. With laughter they struggled 
over it; Kate released it and Isabel rising 
held it up before her. Then she allowed it 
to drop to the floor. 

“ Isabel !” exclaimed Kate, her face grown 
cold and hard. She stooped with dignity 
and picked up the garment. 

“ Oh, forgive me,” implored Isabel, throw- 
ing her arms around her neck. “ I did not 


196 The Mettle of the Pasture 

know what I was doing ! and she buried her 
face on the young wife's shoulder. ‘‘I was 
thinking of myself : I cannot tell you why ! ” 

Kate released herself gently. Her face 
remained grave. She had felt the first wound 
of motherhood : it could not be healed at 
once. The friends could not look at each 
other. Isabel began to draw on her gloves 
and Kate did not seek to keep her longer. 

“ I must go. Dear friend, have you for- 
given me ? I cannot tell you what was in 
my heart. Some day you will understand. 
Try to forgive till you do understand.” 

Kate's mouth trembled : “ Isabel, why are 
you so changed toward me ? '' 

Ah, I have not changed toward you ! 
I shall never change toward you ! '' 

‘‘Are you too happy to care for me any 
longer ? '' 

“ Ah, Kate, I am not too happy for any- 
thing. Some day you will understand.'' 

She leaned far out and waved her hand 
as she drove away, and then she threw her- 
self back into the carriage. “ Dear injured 
friend ! Brave loyal woman ! '' she cried, “ the 


The Mettle of the Pasture 197 

men we loved have ruined both our lives ; 
and we who never had a secret from each 
other meet and part as hypocrites to shield 
them. Drive home/' she said to the driver. 

If any one motions to stop, pay no atten- 
tion. Drive fast." 

Mrs. Osborn watched the carriage out of 
sight and then walked slowly back to her 
work. She folded the soft white fabric over 
the cushions and then laid her cheek against 
it and gave it its first christening — the 
christening of tears. 


IX 


The court-house clock in the centre of the 
town clanged the hour of ten — hammered it 
out lavishly and cheerily as a lusty black- 
smith strikes with prodigal arm his customary 
anvil. Another clock in a dignified church 
tower also struck ten, but with far greater 
solemnity, as though reminding the town 
clock that time is not to be measured out to 
man as a mere matter of business, but intoned 
savingly and warningly as the chief com- 
modity of salvation. Then another clock in 
a more attenuated cobwebbed steeple also 
struck ten, reaffirming the gloomy view of 
its resounding brother and insisting that the 
town clock had treated the subject with 
sinful levity. ^ . 

Nevertheless the town clock seemed to 
have the best of the argument on this par- 
ticular day ; for the sun was shining, cool 
breezes were blowing, and the streets were 
thronged with people intent on making bar- 
gains. Possibly the most appalling idea in 
19S 


The Mettle of the Pasture 199 

most men’s notions of eternity is the dread 
that there will be no more bargaining there. 

A bird’s-eye view of the little town as it 
lay outspread on its high fertile plateau, sur- 
rounded by green woods and waving fields, 
would have revealed near one edge of it a 
large verdurous spot which looked like an 
overrun oasis. This oasis was enclosed by a 
high fence on the inside of which ran a hedge 
of lilacs, privet, and osage orange. Some- 
where in it was an old one-story manor 
house of rambling ells and verandas. Else- 
where was a little summer-house, rose- 
covered; still elsewhere an arbor vine-hung; 
at various other places secluded nooks with 
seats, where the bushes could hide you and 
not hear you — a virtue quite above anything 
human. Marguerite lived in this labyrinth. 

As th^ dissenting clocks finished striking, 
had you been standing outside the fence near 
a little side gate used by grocers’ and bakers’ 
carts, you might have seen Marguerite her- 
self. There came a soft push against the 
gate from within ; and as it swung part of 
the way open, you might have observed that 


200 The Mettle of the Pasture 

the push was delivered by the toe of a little 
foot. A second push sent it still farther. 
Then there was a pause and then it flew 
^ open and stayed open. At first there ap- 
peared what looked like an inverted snowy 
flagstaff but tp.rned out to be a long, closed 
white parasol ; then Marguerite herself ap- 
peared, bending her head low under the 
privet leaves and holding her skirts close in, 
so that they might not be touched by the 
whitewash on each edge. Once outside, she 
straightened herself up with the lithe grace 
of a young willow, released her skirts, and 
balancing herself on the point of her parasol, 
closed the gate with her toe : she was too 
dainty to touch it. 

The sun shone hot and Marguerite 
quickly raised her parasol. It made you 
think of some silken white myriad-fluted 
mushroom of the dark May woods ; and 
Marguerite did not so much seem to have 
come out of the house as out of the garden 
— to have slept there on its green moss 
with the new moon on her eyelids — in- 
deed to have been born there, in some wise 


The Mettle of the Pasture 201 

compounded of violets and hyacinths ; and 
as the finishing touch to have had squeezed 
into her nature a few drops of wildwood 
spritishness. 

She started toward the town with a move- 
ment somewhat like that of aj,^tall thin lily 
stalk swayed by zephyrs — with a lilt, a ca- 
dence, an ever changing rhythm of joy : plain 
walking on the solid earth was not for her. 
At friendly houses along the way she peeped 
into open windows, calling to friends ; she 
stooped over baby carriages on the sidewalk, 
noting but not measuring their mysteries ; 
she bowed to the right and to the left at 
passing carriages ; and people leaned far out 
to bow and smile at her. Her passage 
through the town was somewhat like that of 
a butterfly crossing a field. 

Will he be there } ” she asked. “ I did 
not tell him I was coming, but he heard 
me say I should be there at half-past ten 
o’clock. It is his duty to notice my least 
remark.” 

When she reached her destination, the 
old town library, she mounted the lowest 


202 The Mettle of the Pasture 

step and glanced rather guiltily up and down 
the street. Three ladies were going up and 
two men were going down : no one was 
coming toward Marguerite. 

Now, why is he not here ? He shall be 
punished for this.'^ 

She paced slowly backward and forward 
yet a little while. Then she started 
resolutely in the direction of a street 
where most of the law offices were situated. 
Turning a corner, she came full upon Judge 
Morris. 

Ah, good morning, good morning,” he 
cried, putting his gold-headed cane under his 
arm and holding out both hands. Where 
did you sleep last night ? On rose leaves ? ” 

I was in grandmother’s bed when I left 
off,” said Marguerite, looking up at the rim 
of her hat. 

‘‘And where were yon when you began 
again ? ” 

“ Still in grandmother’s bed. I think I 
must have been there all the time. I know 
all about your old Blackstone and all that 
kind of thing,” she continued, glancing at a 


T'he Mettle of the Pasture 203 

yellow book under his arm and speaking 
with a threat as though he had adjudged her 
ignorant. 

Ah, then you will make a good lawyer's 
wife." 

* I supposed rd make a good wife of any 
kind. Are you corp,ing to my ball ? " 

Well, you know I am too old to make 
engagements far ahead. But I expect to be 
there. If I am not, my ghost shall attend." 

How shall I recognize it ? Does it 
dance ? I don't want to mistake it for 
Barbee." 

Barbee shall not come if I can keep him 
at home." 

“ And why, please ? " 

“ I am he is falling in love with 

you." 

But why shouldn't he ? " 

“ I don't wish my. nephew to be flirted." 

“ But how do you know I'd flirt him ? " 

Ah, I knew your mother when she was 
young and your grandmother when she was 
young : you're all alike." 

“We are so glad we are," said Marguerite, 


204 The Mettle of the Pasture 

as she danced away from him under her 
parasol. 

Farther down the street she met Professor 
Hardage. 

“ I know all about your old Odyssey — 
your old Horace and all those things/' she 
said threateningly. “ I am not as ignorant as 
you think.” 

I wish Horace had known you.” 

Would it have been nice ? ” 

‘^He might have written an ode Ad Mar- 
garitam instead of Ad Lalagemr 

“Then I might have been able to read 
it,” she said. “ In school I couldn't read 
the other one. But you mustn't think that 
I did not read a great deal of Latin. The 
professor used to say that I read my Latin 
b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l-l-y, but that I didn't get 
much English out of it. I told him I got 
as much English out of it as the Romans 
did, and that they certainly ought to have 
known what it was meant for.” 

“ That must have taught him a lesson ! ” 
“ Oh, he said I'd do : I was called the 
girl who read Latin perfectly, regardless of 


The Mettle of the Pasture 205 

English. And, then, I won a prize for an 
essay on the three most important things 
that the United States has contributed to 
the civilizations of the Old World. I said 
they were tobacco, wild turkeys and idle 
curiosity. Of course every one knew about 
tobacco and turkeys ; but wasn't it clever of 
me to think of idle curiosity? Now, wasn't 
it ? I made a long list of things and then I 
selected these from my list." 

“ I'd like to know what the other things 
were ! " 

‘‘ Oh, I've forgotten now ! But they were 
very important at the time. Are you coming 
to my ball ? " 

I hope to come.” 

‘‘And is Miss Anna coming? ” 

“ Miss Anna is coming. She is coming 
as a man ; and she is going to bring a lady." 

“ How is she going to dress as a man ? ” 
said Marguerite, as she danced away from 
him under her parasol. 

She strolled slowly on until she reached 
the street of justice and the jail; turning 
into this, she passed up the side opposite 


20 6 The Mettle of the Pasture 

the law offices. Her parasol rested far back 
on one shoulder ; to any lateral observer 
there could have been no mistake regarding 
the face in front of it. She passed through 
a group of firemen sitting in their shirt- 
sleeves in front of the engine-house, disap- 
peared around the corner, and went to a 
confectioner’s. Presently she reentered the 
street, and this time walked along the side 
where the law offices were grouped. She 
disappeared around the corner and entered 
a dry-goods store. A few moments later 
she reentered the street for the third and 
last time. Just as she passed a certain law 
office, she dropped her packages. No one 
came out to pick them up. Marguerite did 
this herself — very slowly. Still no one ap- 
peared. She gave three sharp little raps 
on the woodwork of the door. 

From the rear office a red head was thrust 
suddenly out like a surprised woodpecker’s. 
Barbee hurried to the entrance and looked 
up the street. He saw a good many people. 
He looked down the street and noticed a 
parasol moving away. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 207 

“ I supposed you were in the court- 
house,” she said, glancing at him with sur- 
prise. “ Haven’t you any cases ? ” 

One,” he answered, “ a case of life and 
death.” 

“ You need not walk against me, Barbee ; I 
am not a vine to need propping. And you need 
not walk with me. I am quite used to walk- 
ing alone : my nurse taught me years agov” 
But now you have to learn not to walk 
alone. Marguerite.” 

‘‘ It will be very difficult.” 

‘Ht will be easy when the right man steps 
forward : am I the right man ? ” 

“ I am going to the library. Good 
morning.” 

So am I going to the library.” 

‘‘Aren’t all your authorities in your office?” 

“ All except one.” 

They turned into the quiet shady street : 
they were not the first to do this. 

When they reached the steps, Marguerite 
sank down. 

“ Why do I get so tired when I walk with 
you, Barbee? You exhaust me very rapidly.” 


20 8 The Mettle of the Pasture 

He sat down not very near her, but soon 
edged a little closer. 

Marguerite leaned over and looked in- 
tently at his big, thin ear. 

“What a lovely red your ear is, seen 
against a clear sky. It would make a beau- 
tiful lamp-shade.” 

“ Y ou may have both of them — and all the 
fixtures — solid brass — an antique some day.” 

He edged a little closer. 

Marguerite coughed and pointed across the 
street : “ Aren’t those trees beautiful ^ ” 

“ Oh, don’t talk to me about trees ! What 
do I care about wood! You’re the tree that 
I want to dig up, and take home, and plant, 
and live under, and be buried by.” 

“ That’s a great deal — all in one sentence.” 

“ Are you never going to love me a little. 
Marguerite ? ” 

“ How can I tell ? ” 

“ Don’t torture me.” 

“ What am I doing ? ” 

“You are not doing anything, that’s the 
trouble. The other night I was sure you 
loved me.” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 209 

“ I didn't say so." 

But you looked it." 

“ Then I looked all wrong : I shall change 
my looks." 

“ Will you name the day ? " 

What day ? " 

‘‘ The day." 

‘‘I'll name them all: Monday, Tuesday — " 

“ Ah, Lord — " 

“ Barbee, I'm going to sing you a love 
song — an old, old, old love song. Did 
you ever hear one ? " 

“ I have been hearing mine for some time." 

“ This goes back to grandmother's time. 
But it's the man's song : you ought to be 
singing it to me." 

“ I shall continue to sing my own." 

Marguerite began to sing close to Barbee's 
ear : 


give to you a paper of pins. 

If that’s the way that love begins. 
If you will marry me, me, me. 

If you will marry me.” 


“ Pins ! " said Barbee ; “ why, that old-time 


210 The Mettle of the Pasture 

minstrel must have been singing when pins 
were just invented. You can have — ” 

Marguerite quieted him with a finger on 
his elbow : 

I’li give to you a dress of red. 

Bound all around with golden thread. 

If you will marry me, me, me. 

If you will marry me/* 

How about a dress not simply bound with 
golden thread but made of it, made of noth- 
ing else ! and then hung all over with golden 
ornaments and the heaviest golden utensils?” 

Marguerite sang on : 

“1*11 give to you a coach and six. 

Every horse as black as pitch. 

If you will marry me, me, me. 

If you will marry me.** 

ril make it two coaches and twelve white 
ponies.” 

Marguerite sang on, this time very ten- 
derly : 

'‘1*11 give to you the key of my heart. 

That we may love and never part. 

If you will marry me, me, me. 

If you will marry me.** 


The Mettle of the Pasture 2 1 1 

“No man can give anything better,” said 
Barbee, moving closer (as close as possible) 
and looking questioningly full into Margue- 
rite’s eyes. 

Marguerite glanced up and down the street. 
The moment was opportune, the disposition 
of the universe seemed kind. The big 
parasol slipped a little lower. 

“ Marguerite . . . Please, Marguerite . . . 
Marguerite T 

The parasol was suddenly pulled down 
low and remained very still a moment : then 
a quiver ran round the fringe. It was still 
again, and there was another quiver. It 
swayed to and fro and round and round, and 
then stood very, very still indeed, and there 
was a violent quiver. 

Then Marguerite ran into the library as 
out of a sudden shower; and Barbee with 
long slow strides returned to his office. 

“Anna,” said Professor Hardage, laying 
his book across his knee as they sat that 
afternoon in the shady side porch, “ I saw 
Marguerite this morning and she sent her 


212 The Mettle of the Pasture 


compliments. They were very pretty com- 
pliments. I sometimes wonder where Mar- 
guerite came from — out of what lands she 
has wandered.” 

Well, now that you have stopped read- 
ing,” said Miss Anna, laying down her work 
and smoothing her brow (she never spoke 
to him until he did stop — perfect woman), 
that is what I have been waiting to talk 
to you about : do you wish to go with Har- 
riet to Marguerite's ball ? ” 

“I most certainly do not wish to go with 
Harriet to Marguerite's ball,” he said, laugh- 
ing, “ I am going with you.” 

“Well, you most certainly are not going 
with me ; I am going with Harriet.” 

“ Anna ! ” 

“ If I do not, who will ? Now what I want 
you to do is to pay Harriet some attention 
after I arrive with her. I shall take her into 
supper, because if you took her in, she would 
never get any. But suppose that after sup- 
per you strolled carelessly up to us — you 
know how men do — and asked her to take 
a turn with you.” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 213 

What kind of a turn in Heaven’s name ? ” 

“ Well, suppose you took her out into the 
yard — to one of those little rustic seats of 
Marguerite’s — and sat there with her for 
half an hour — in the darkest place you 
could possibly find. And I want you to try 
to hold her hand.” 

“ Why, Anna, what on earth — ” 

Now don’t you suppose Harriet would 
let you do it,” she said indignantly. ‘‘ But 
what I want her to have is the pleasure of 
refusing : it would be such a triumph. It 
would make her happy for days : it might 
lengthen her life a little.” 

“What effect do you suppose it would have 
on mine ? ” 

H is face softened as he mused on the kind 
of woman his sister was. 

“Now don’t you try to do anything else,” 
she added severely. “ I don’t like your ex- 
pression.” 

He laughed outright : “ What do you 
suppose I’d do ? ” 

“ I don’t suppose you’d do anything; but 
don’t you do it ! ” 


214 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Miss Anna’s invitation to Harriet had 
been written some days before. 

She had sent down to the book-store for 
ten cents’ worth of tinted note paper and to 
the drug store for some of Harriet’s favorite 
sachet powder. Then she put a few sheets 
of the paper in a dinner .plate and sprinkled 
the powder over them and set the plate 
where the powder could perfume the paper 
but not the house. Miss Anna was averse 
to all odor-bearing things natural or artificial. 
The perfect triumph of her nose was to per- 
ceive -absolutely nothing. The only trial to 
her in cooking was the fact that so often she 
could not make things taste good without 
making them smell good. 

In the course of time, bending over a sheet 
of this note paper, with an expression of high 
nasal disapproval. Miss Anna had written the 
following note : 

“A. Hardage, Esq., presents the compli- 
ments of the season to Miss Crane and begs 
the pleasure of her company to the ball. 
The aforesaid Hardage, on account of long 
intimacy with the specified Crane, hopes that 


The Mettle of the Pasture 215 

she (Crane) will not object to riding alone at 
night in a one-horse rockaway with no side 
curtains. Crane to be hugged on the way if 
Hardage so desires — and Hardage certainly 
will desire. Hardage and Crane to dance at 
the ball together while their strength lasts.” 

Having posted this letter. Miss Anna 
went to her orphan and foundling asylum 
where she was virgin mother to the mother- 
less, drawing the mantle of her spotless life 
around little waifs who strayed into the world 
from hidden paths of shame. 


X 


It was past one o’clock on the night of 
the ball. 

When dew and twilight had fallen on the 
green labyrinths of Marguerite’s yard, the 
faintest, slenderest moon might have been 
seen bending over toward the spot out 
of drapery of violet cloud. It descended 
through the secluded windows of Margue- 
rite’s room and attended her while she 
dressed, weaving about her and leaving 
with her the fragrance of its divine youth 
passing away. Then it withdrew, having 
appointed a million stars for torches. 

Matching the stars were globe-like lamps, 
all of one color, all of one shape, which 
Marguerite had had swung amid the inter- 
laced greenery of trees and vines : as lanterns 
around the gray bark huts of slow-winged 
owls ; as sun-tanned grapes under the arches 
of the vine-covered summer-house ; as love’s 
lighthouses above the reefs of tumbling 
rose-bushes : all to illumine the paths which 
216 


The Mettle of the Pasture 2iy 

led to nooks and seats. For the night would 
be very ,warm ; and then Marguerite — but 
was she the only one ? 

The three Marguerites, — grandmother, 
mother, and daughter, — standing side by 
side and dressed each like each as nearly as 
was fitting, had awaited their guests. Three 
high-born fragile natures, solitary each on 
the stem of its generation ; not made for 
blasts and rudeness. They had receiyed 
their guests with the graciousness of sincere 
souls and not without antique distinction ; 
for in their veins flowed blood which had 
helped to make manners gentle in France 
centuries ago. 

The eldest Marguerite introduced some 
of her aged friends, who had ventured forth 
to witness the launching of the frail life-boat, 
to the youngest; the youngest Marguerite 
introduced some of hers to the eldest; the 
Marguerite linked between made some of 
hers known to her mother and to her child. 

Mrs. Conyers arrived early, leaning on 
the arm of her grandson, Victor Fielding. 
To-night she was ennobled with jewels — 


21 8 The Mettle of the Pasture 

the old family jewels of her last husband’s 
family, not of her own. 

When the three Marguerites beheld her, 
a shadow fell on their faces. The change 
was like the assumption of a mask behind 
which they could efface themselves as ladies 
and receive as hostesses. While she lin- 
gered, they forebore even to exchange 
glances lest feelings injurious to a guest 
should be thus revealed : so pure in them 
was the strain of courtesy that went with 
proffered hospitality. (They were not of 
the kind who invite you to their houses 
and having you thus in their power try to 
pierce you with little insults which they 
would never dare offer openly in the street : 
verbal Borgias at their own tables and fire- 
sides.) The moment she left them, the 
three faces became effulgent again. 

A little later, strolling across the rooms 
toward them alone, came Judge Morris, a 
sprig of wet heliotrope in his button-hole, 
plucked from one of Marguerite’s plants. 
The paraffin starch on his shirt front and 
collar and cuffs gave to them the appearance 


The. Mettle of the Pasture 219 

and consistency of celluloid — it being the 
intention of his old laundress to make him 
indeed the stiffest and most highly polished 
gentleman of his high world. His noble 
face as always a sermon on kindness, sin- 
cerity, and peace ; yet having this contradic- 
tion, that the happier it seemed, the sadder 
it was to look at : as though all his virtues 
only framed his great wrong; so that the 
more clearly you beheld the bright frame, 
the more deeply you felt the dark picture. 

As soon as they discovered him, the 
Marguerites with a common impulse linked 
their arms endearingly. Six little white feet 
came regimentally forward ; each of six little 
white hands made individual forward move- 
ments to be the first to lie within his palm ; 
six velvet eyes softened and glistened. 

Miss Anna came with Harriet; Professor 
Hardage came alone; Barbee — burgeoning 
Alcibiades of the ballroom — came with 
Self-Confidence. He strolled indifferently 
toward the eldest Marguerite, from whom 
he passed superiorly to the central one ; by 
that time the third had vanished. 


220 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Isabel came with the Osborns : George 
soon to be taken secretly home by Rowan ; 
Kate (who had forced herself to accompany 
him despite her bereavement), lacerated but 
giving no sign even to Isabel, who relieved 
the situation by attaching herself momen- 
tarily to her hostesses. 

Mamma,” protested Marguerite, with 
indignant eyes, “ do you wish Isabel to 
stand here and eclipse your daughter ? 
Station her on the far side of grandmother, 
and let the men pass this way first ! ” 

The Merediths were late. As they ad- 
vanced to pay their respects, Isabel main- 
tained her composure. An observer, who 
had been told to watch, might have noticed 
that when Rowan held out his hand, she did 
not place hers in it ; and that while she did 
not turn her face away from his face, her 
eyes never met his eyes. She stood a little 
apart from the receiving group at the 
moment and spoke to him quickly and 
awkwardly : 

“ As soon as you can, will you come and 
walk with me through the parlors ? Please 


The Mettle of the Pasture 221 


do not pay me any more attention. When 
the evening is nearly over, will you find me 
and take me to some place where we may 
not be interrupted ? I will explain.” 

Without waiting for his assent, she left 
him, and returned with a laugh to the side 
of Marguerite, who was shaking a finger 
threateningly at her. 

It was now past one o’clock : guests were 
already leaving. 

When Rowan went for Isabel, she was 
sitting with Professor Hardage. They were 
not talking ; and her eyes had a look of 
strained expectancy. As soon as she saw 
him, she rose and held out her hand to 
Professor Hardage ; then without speaking 
and still without looking at him, she placed 
the tips of her fingers on the elbow of his 
sleeve. As they walked away, she renewed 
her request in a low voice : “ Take me 
where we shall be undisturbed.” 

They left the rooms. It was an interval 
between the dances : the verandas were 
crowded. They passed out into the yard. 


222 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Along the cool paths, college boys and 
college girls strolled by in couples, not 
caring who listened to their words and with 
that laughter of youth, the whole meaning 
of which is never realized save by those 
who hear it after they have lost it. Older 
couples sat here and there in quiet nooks — 
with talk not meant to be heard and with 
occasional laughter so different. 

They moved on, seeking greater privacy. 
Marguerite’s lamps were burnt out — brief 
flames as measured by human passion. But 
overhead burnt the million torches of 
the stars. How brief all human passion 
measured by that long, long light ! 

He stopped at last: 

Here ? ” 

She placed herself as far as possible from 
him. 

The seat was at the terminus of a path 
in the wildest part of Marguerite’s garden. 
Overhead against the trunk of a tree a soli- 
tary lantern was flickering fitfully. It soon 
went out. The dazzling lights of the ball- 
room, glimmering through boughs and vines. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 223 

shot a few rays into their faces. Music, 
languorous, torturing the heart, swelled and 
died on the air, mingled with the murmur- 
ings of eager voices. Close around them 
in the darkness was the heavy fragrance of 
perishing blossoms — earth dials of yester- 
day ; close around them the clean sweetness 
of fresh ones — breath of the coming morn. 
It was an hour when the heart, surrounded 
by what can live no more and by what 
never before has lived, grows faint and sick 
with yearnings for its own past and forlorn 
with the inevitableness of change — the 
cruelty of all change. 

For a while silence lasted. He waited 
for her to speak ; she tried repeatedly to do 
so. At length with apparent fear that he 
might misunderstand, she interposed an 
agitated command : 

“ Do not say anything.” 

A few minutes later she began to speak to 
him, still struggling for her self-control. 

‘‘ I do not forget that to-night I have been 
acting a part, and that I have asked you to 
act a part with me. I have walked with you 


224 Mettle of the Pasture 

and I have talked with you, and I am with 
you now to create an impression that 
is false ; to pretend before those who see 
us that nothing is changed. I do not for- 
get that I have been doing this thing which 
is unworthy of me. But it is the first time 
— try not to believe it to be my character. 
I am compelled to tell you that it is one of 
the humiliations you have forced upon me.” 

“ I have understood this,” he said hastily, 
breaking the silence she had imposed upon 
him. 

“ Then let it pass,” she cried nervously. 
“It is enough that I have been obliged to 
observe my own hypocrisies, and that I 
have asked you to countenance and to con- 
ceal them.” 

He offered no response. And m a little 
while she went on : 

“ I ought to tell you one thing more. 
Last week I made all my arrangements to go 
away at once, for the summer, for a long 
time. I did not expect to see you again. 
Two or three times I started to the station. 
I have stayed until now because it seemed 


The Mettle of the Pasture 225 

best after all to speak to you once more. 
This is my reason for being here to-night ; 
and it is the only apology I can offer to my- 
self or to you for what I am doing.” 

There was a sad and bitter vehemence in 
her words ; she quivered with passion. 

“ Isabel,” he said more urgently, “ there is 
nothing I am not prepared to tell you.” 

When she spoke again, it was with diffi- 
culty and everything seemed to hang upon 
her question : 

Does any one else know ? ” 

His reply was immediate: 

“ No one else knows.” 

“ Have you every reason to believe this ? ” 

I have every reason to believe this.” 

You kept your secret well,” she said 
with mournful irony. “ You reserved it 
for the one person whom it could most 
injure : my privilege is too great ! ” 

“ It is true,” he said. 

She turned and looked at him. She felt 
the depth of conviction with which he spoke, 
yet it hurt her. She liked his dignity and 
his self-control, and would not have had 
Q 


226 The Mettle of the Pasture 

them less ; yet she gathered fresh bitterness 
from the fact that he did not lose them. But 
to her each moment disclosed its new and 
uncontrollable emotions; as words came, her 
mind quickly filled again with the things she 
could not say. She now went on : 

“ I am forced to ask these questions, 
although I have no right to ask them and 
certainly I have no wish. I have wanted to 
know whether I could carry out the plan 
that has seemed to me best for each of us. 
If others shared your secret, I could not do 
this. I am going away — I am going in the 
morning. I shall remain away a long time. 
Since we have been seen together here 
to-night as usual, no one suspects now that 
for us everything has become nothing. 
While I am away, no one can have the 
means of finding this out. Before I return, 
there will be changes — there may be many 
changes. If we meet with indifference then, 
it will be thought that we have become 
indifferent, one of us, or both of us : I sup- 
pose it will be thought to be you. There 
will be comment, comment that will be hard 


The Mettle of the Pasture 227 

to stand ; but this will be the quietest way to 
end everything — as far as anything can ever 
be ended.” 

Whatever you wish ! I leave it all to 
you.” 

She did not pause to heed his words : 

“This will spare me the linking of my 
name with yours any further just now ; it will 
spare me all that I should suffer if the matter 
which estranges us should be discovered and be 
discussed. It will save me hereafter, perhaps, 
from being pointed out as a woman who so 
trusted and was so deceived. It may shield 
my life altogether from some notoriety : I 
could be grateful for that ! ” 

She was thinking of her family name, and 
of the many proud eyes that were turned 
upon her in the present and out of the past. 
There was a sting for her in the remem- 
brance and the sting passed into her con- 
cluding words : 

“ I do not forget that when I ask you 
to do all this, I, who am not given to prac- 
tising deception, am asking you to go on 
practising yours. I am urging you to shirk 


228 The Mettle of the Pasture 

the consequences of your wrong-doing — to 
enjoy in the world an untarnished name after 
you have tarnished your life. Do not think 
I forget that ! Still I beg you to do as T 
say. This is another of the humi’iations 
you have led me to : that although I am 
separated from you by all that once united 
us, I must remain partner with you in the 
concealment of a thing that would ruin you 
if it were known.” 

She turned to him as though she ex- 
perienced full relief through her hard and 
cruel words : 

“ Do I understand, then, that this is to 
be buried away by you — and by me — from 
the knowledge of the world ? ” 

‘‘No one else has any right to know it. 
I have told you that.” 

“ Then that is all ! ” 

She gave a quick dismissal to the subject, 
so putting an end to the interview. 

She started to rise from her seat ; but im- 
pulses, new at the instant, checked her : all 
the past checked her, all that she was herself 
and all that he had been to her. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 229 

Perhaps what at each moment had angered 
her most was the fact that she was speaking, 
not he. She knew him to be of the blood 
of silent men and to have inherited their 
silence. This very trait of his had rendered 
association with him so endearing. Love 
had been so divinely apart from speech, 
either his or her own : most intimate for 
having been most mute. But she knew also 
that he was capable of speech, full and strong 
and quick enough upon occasion ; and her 
heart had cried out that in a lifetime this 
was the one hour when he should not have 
given way to her or allowed her to say a 
word — when he should have borne her 
down with uncontrollable pleading. 

It was her own work that confronted 
her and she did not recognize it. She had 
exhausted resources to convince him of her 
determination to cast him off* at once; to 
render it plain that further parley would to 
her be further insult. She had made him 
feel this on the night of his confession ; in 
the note of direct repulse she sent him by 
the hand of a servant in her own house the 


230 The Mettle of the Pasture 

following afternoon ; by returning to him 
everything that he had ever given her ; by 
her refusal to acknowledge his presence this 
evening beyond laying upon him a com- 
mand ; and by every word that she had just 
spoken. And in all this she had thought 
only of what she suffered, not of what he 
must be suffering. 

Perhaps some late instantaneous recogni- 
tion of this flashed upon her as she started to 
leave him — as she looked at him sitting there, 
his face turned toward her in stoical accept- 
ance of his fate. There was something in 
the controlled strength of it that touched her 
newly. She may have realized that if he had 
not been silent, if he had argued, defended 
himself, pleaded, she would have risen and 
walked back to the house without a word. 
It turned her nature toward him a little, that 
he placed too high a value upon her dismissal 
of him not to believe it irrevocable. 

Yet it hurt her t she was but one woman 
in the world ; could the thought of this have 
made it easier for him to let her go away now 
without a protest ? 


The Mettle of the Pasture 231 

The air of the summer night grew un- 
bearable for sweetness about her. The faint 
music of the ballroom had no pity for her. 
There young eyes found joy in answering 
eyes, passed on and found joy in others and 
in others. Palm met palm and then palms 
as soft and then palms yet softer. Some 
minutes before, the laughter of Marguerite 
in the shrubbery quite close by had startled 
Isabel. She had distinguished a voice. 
Now Marguerite’s laughter reached her 
again — and there was a different voice with 
hers. Change ! change ! one put away, the 
place so perfectly filled by another. 

A white moth of the night wandered into 
Rowan’s face searching its features ; then it 
flitted over to her and searched hers, its 
wings fanning and clinging to her lips ; and 
then it passed on, pursuing amid mistakes 
and inconstancies its life-quest lasting through 
a few darknesses. 

Fear suddenly reached down into her heart 
and drew up one question ; and she asked 
that question in a voice low and cold and 
guarded : 


232 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Sometime, when you ask another woman 
to marry you, will you think it your duty 
to tell her ? '' 

I will never ask any other woman.” 

“ I did not inquire for your intention ; I 
asked what you would believe to be your 
duty.” 

It will never become my duty. But if 
it should, I would never marry without being 
true to the woman ; and to be true is to tell 
the truth.” 

“ You mean that you would tell her ? ” 

“ I mean that I would tell her.” 

After a little silence she stirred in her 
seat and spoke, all her anger gone : 

“ I am going to ask you, if you ever do, 
not to tell her as you have told me — after it 
is too late. If you cannot find some way of 
letting her know the truth before she loves 
you, then do not tell her afterward, when you 
have won her life away from her. If there 
is deception at all, then it is not worse to 
go on deceiving her than it was to begin to 
deceive her. Tell her, if you must, while 
she is indifferent and will not care, not after 


The Mettle of the Pasture 233 

she has given herself to you and will then 
have to give you up. But what can you, a 
man, know what it means to a woman to tell 
her this ! How can you know, how can you 
ever, ever know ! 

She covered her face with her hands and 
her voice broke with tears. 

Isabel — ” 

“ You have no right to call me by my 
name, and I have no right to hear it, as 
though nothing were changed between us.” 

‘‘ I have not changed.” 

ow could you tell me ! Why did you 
ever tell me ! ” she cried abruptly, grief break- 
ing her down. 

“There was a time when I did not expect 
to tell you. I expected to do as other men 
do.” 

“ Ah, you would have deceived me ! ” she 
exclaimed, turning upon him with fresh suf- 
fering. “ You would have taken advantage 
of my ignorance and have married me and 
never have let me know ! And you would 
have called that deception love and you would 
have called yourself a true man ! ” 


234 Mettle of the Pasture 

“ But I did not do this ! It was yourself 
who helped me to see that the beginning 
of morality is to stop lying and deception/' 
“ But if you had this on your conscience 
already, what right had you ever to come near 
me ? ” 

I had come to love you ! " 

“ Did your love of me give you the right 
to win mine ? " 

It gave me the temptation." 

‘‘And what did you expect when you 
determined to tell me this ? What did you 
suppose such a confession would mean to 
me ? Did you imagine that while it was 
still fresh on your lips, I would smile in 
your face and tell you it made no difference ? 
Was I to hear you speak of one whose youth 
and innocence you took away through her 
frailties, and then step joyously into her 
place ? Was this the unfeeling, the degraded 
soul you thought to be mine? Would I 
have been worthy even of the poor love you 
could give me, if I had done that ? " 

“ I expected you to marry me ! I ex- 
pected you to forgive. I have this at least 


The Mettle of the Pasture 235 

to remember: I lost you honestly when I 
could have won you falsely/’ 

“ Ah, you have no right to seek any 
happiness in what is all sadness to me ! 
And all the sadness, the ruin of everything, 
comes from your wrong-doing.” 

Remember that my wrong-doing did 
not begin with me. I bear my share : it is 
enough : I will bear no more.” 

A long silence followed. She spoke at 
last, checking her tears : 

“ And so this is the end of my dream ! 
This is what life has brought me to ! And 
what have I done to deserve it? To leave 
home, to shun friends, to dread scandal, to 
be misjudged, to bear the burden of your 
secret and share with you its shame, to see 
my years stretch out before me with no love 
in them, no ambitions, no ties — this is what 
life has brought me, and what have I done to 
deserve it ? ” 

As her tears ceased, her eyes seemed to be 
looking into a future that lacked the relief 
of tears. As though she were already passed 
far on into it and were looking back to this 


236 The Mettle of the Pasture 

moment, she went on, speaking very slowly 
and sadly : 

“We shall not see each other again in a 
long time, and whenever we do, we shall be 
nothing to each other and we shall never 
speak of this. There is one thing I wish to 
tell you. Some day you may have false 
thoughts of me. You may think that I had 
no deep feeling, no constancy, no mercy, no 
forgiveness ; that it was easy to give you up, 
because I never loved you. I shall have 
enough to bear and I cannot bear that. So 
I want to tell you that you will never know 
what my love for you was. A woman can- 
not speak till she has the right ; and before 
you gave me the right, you took it away. 
For some little happiness it may bring me 
hereafter let me tell you that you were every- 
thing to me, everything ! If I had taught 
myself to make allowances for you, if I 
had seen things to forgive in you, what you 
told me would have been only one thing 
more and I might have forgiven. But all 
that I saw in you I loved. Rowan, and I 
believed that I saw everything. Remember 


The Mettle of the Pasture 237 

this, if false thoughts of me ever come to 
you ! I expect to live a long time : the 
memory of my love of you will be the sor- 
row that will keep me alive.” 

After a few moments of silent struggle 
she moved nearer. 

“ Do not touch me,” she said ; ‘‘ and re- 
member that what love made dear, it also 
made sacred.” 

She put out a hand in the darkness and, 
closing her eyes over welling tears, passed it 
for long remembrance over his features : let- 
ting the palm lie close against his forehead 
with her fingers in his hair ; afterward press- 
ing it softly over his eyes and passing it 
around his neck. Then she took her hand 
away as though fearful of an impulse. Then 
she put her hand out again and laid her 
fingers across his lips. Then she took her 
hand away, and leaning over, touched her lips 
to his lips : 

Good-by ! ” she murmured against his 
face, ‘‘ good-by ! good-by ! good-by ! ” 

Mrs. Conyers had seen Rowan and Isabel 


238 The Mettle of the Pasture 

together in the parlors early in the evening. 
She had seen them, late in the evening, quit 
the house. She had counted the minutes 
till they returned and she had marked their 
agitation as they parted. The closest asso- 
ciation lasting from childhood until now had 
convinced her of the straightforwardness of 
Isabel's character ; and the events of the 
night were naturally accepted by her as evi- 
dences of the renewal of relationship with 
Rowan, if not as yet of complete recon- 
ciliation. 

She herself had encountered during the 
evening unexpected slights and repulses. 
Her hostesses had been cool, but she ex- 
pected them to be cool : they did not like 
her nor she them. But Judge Morris had 
avoided her ; the Hardages had avoided her ; 
each member of the Meredith family had 
avoided her; Isabel had avoided her; even 
Harriet, when once she crossed the rooms 
to her, had with an incomprehensible flare 
of temper turned her back and sought refuge 
with Miss Anna. She was very angry. 

But overbalancing the indignities of the 


The Mettle of the Pasture 239 

evening was now this supreme joy of Isabel's 
return to what she believed to be Isabel's 
destiny. She sent her grandson home that 
she might have the drive with the girl alone. 
When Isabel, upon entering the carriage, her 
head and eyes closely muffled in her shawl, 
had withdrawn as far as possible into one 
corner and remained silent on the way, she 
refrained from intrusion, believing that she 
understood the emotions dominating her be- 
havior. 

The carriage drew up at the door. She 
got out quickly and passed to her room — 
with a motive of her own. 

Isabel lingered. She ascended the steps 
without conscious will. At the top she missed 
her shawl : it had become entangled in the 
fringe of a window strap, had slipped from 
her bare shoulders as she set her foot on the 
pavement, and now lay in the track of the 
carriage wheels. As she picked it up, an 
owl flew viciously close to her face. What 
memories, what memories came back to her ! 
With a shiver she went over to a frame- 
like opening in the foliage on one side of the 


240 The Mettle of the Pasture 

veranda and stood looking toward the hori- 
zon where the moon had sunk on that other 
night — that first night of her sorrow. How 
long it was since then ! 

At any other time she would have dreaded 
the parting which must take place with her 
grandmother: now what a little matter it 
seemed ! 

As she tapped and opened the door, she 
put her hand quickly before her eyes, blinded 
by the flood of light which streamed out into 
the dark hall. Every gas-jet was turned on 
— around the walls, in the chandelier; and 
under the chandelier stood her grandmother, 
waiting, her eyes fixed expectantly on the 
door, her countenance softened with return- 
ing affection, the fire of triumph in her eyes. 

She had unclasped from around her neck 
the diamond necklace of old family jewels, 
and held it in the pool of her rosy palms, as 
though it were a mass of clear separate rain- 
drops rainbow-kindled. It was looped about 
the tips of her two upright thumbs ; part of 
it had slipped through the palms and flashed 
like a pendent arc of light below. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 241 

The necklace was an heirloom ; it had 
started to grow in England of old ; it had 
grown through the generations of the family 
in the New World. 

It had begun as a ring — given with the 
plighting of troth ; it had become ear-rings ; 
it had become a pendant; it had become a 
tiara ; it had become part of a necklace ; it 
had become a necklace — completed circlet 
of many hopes. 

As Isabel entered Mrs. Conyers started 
forward, smiling, to clasp it around her neck 
as the expression of her love and pleasure; 
then she caught sight of Isabel's face, and 
with parted lips she stood still. 

Isabel, white, listless, had sunk into the 
nearest chair, and now said, quietly and 
wearily, noticing nothing : 

“ Grandmother, do not get up to see me 
off in the morning. My trunk is packed ; 
the others are already at the station. All my 
arrangements are made. I'll say good-by 
to you now," and she stood up. 

Mrs. Conyers stood looking at her. 
Gradually a change passed over her face ; 


242 The Mettle of the Pasture 

her eyes grew dull, the eyelids narrowed 
upon the balls ; the round jaws relaxed ; 
and instead of the smile, hatred came mys- 
teriously out and spread itself rapidly over 
her features : true horrible revelation. Her 
fingers tightened and loosened about the 
necklace until it was forced out through 
them, until it glided, crawled, as though it 
were alive and were being strangled and were 
writhing. She spoke with entire quietness : 

“After all that I have seen to-night, are 
you not going to marry Rowan ? ” 

Isabel stirred listlessly as with remem- 
brance of a duty : 

“ I had forgotten, grandmother, that I owe 
you an explanation. I found, after all, that 
I should have to see Rowan again : there was 
a matter about which I was compelled to 
speak with him. That is all I meant by be- 
ing with him to-night: everything now is 
ended between us.*’ 

“ And you are going away without giving 
me the reason of all this ? ” 

Isabel gathered her gloves and shawl to- 
gether and said with simple distaste : 


The Mettle of the Pasture 243 

‘‘Yes.” 

As she did so, Mrs. Conyers, suddenly 
beside herself with aimless rage, raised one 
arm and hurled the necklace against the op- 
posite wall of the room. It leaped a tangled 
braid through the air and as it struck burst 
asunder, and the stones scattered and rattled 
along the floor and rolled far out on the 
carpet. 

She turned and putting up a little white 
arm, which shook as though palsied, began 
to extinguish the lights. Isabel watched her 
a moment remorsefully : 

“ Good night, grandmother, and good-by. 
I am sorry to go away and leave you angry.” 

As she entered her room, gray light was 
already creeping in through the windows, 
left open to the summer night. She went 
mournfully to her trunk. The tray had been 
lifted out and placed upon a chair near by. 
The little tops to the divisions of the tray 
were all thrown back, and she could see 
that the last thing had been packed into its 
place. Her hand satchel was open on her 
bureau, and she could see the edge of a hand- 


244 Mettle of the Pasture 

kerchief and the little brown wicker neck 
of a cologne bottle. Beside the hand sat- 
chel were her purse, baggage checks, and 
travelling ticket : everything was in readiness. 
She looked at it all a long time : 

“ How can I go away ? How can I, how 
can I ? ** 

She went over to her bed. The sheet had 
been turned down, the pillow dented for her 
face. Beside the pillow was a tiny reading- 
stand and on this was a candle and a book — 
with thought of her old habit of reading 
after she had come home from pleasures like 
those of to-night — when they were pleasures. 
Beside the book her maid had set a little cut- 
glass vase of blossoms which had opened 
since she put them there — were just open- 
ing now. 

“ How can I read ? How can I sleep ? 

She crossed to a large window opening 
on the lawn in the rear of the house — and 
looked for the last time out at the gray old 
pines and dim blue, ever wintry firs. Beyond 
were house-tops and tree-tops of the town ; 
and beyond these lay the country — stretching 


The Mettle of the Pasture 245 

away to his home. Soon the morning light 
would be crimsoning the horizon before his 
window. 

“How can I stay?” she said. “How 
can I bear to stay ? ” 

She recalled her last words to him as they 
parted ; 

“ Remember that you are forgotten ! ” 

She recalled his reply : 

“ Forget that you are remembered ! ” 

She sank down on the floor and crossed 
her arms on the window sill and buried her 
face on her arms. The white dawn ap- 
proached, touched her, and passed, and she 
did not heed. 



PART SECOND 


4 - 


I 

The home of the Merediths lay in a 
region of fertile lands adapted alike to tillage 
and to pasturage. The immediate neighbor- 
hood was old, as civilization reckons age in 
the United States, and was well conserved. 
It held in high esteem its traditions of itself, 
approved its own customs, was proud of its 
prides : a characteristic community of coun- 
try gentlemen at the side of each of whom a 
characteristic lady lived and had her peculiar 
being. 

The ownership of the soil had long since 
passed into the hands of capable families — 
with this exception, that here and there be- 
tween the borders of large estates little farms 
were to be found representing all that re- 
mained from slow processes of partition and 
absorption. These scant freeholds had thus 
their pathos, marking as they did the losing 
fight of successive holders against more for- 
249 


250 The Mettle of the Pasture 

tunate, more powerful neighbors. Nothing 
in its way records more surely the clash and 
struggle and ranking of men than the boun- 
daries of land. There you see extinction 
and survival, the perpetual going under of 
the weak, the perpetual overriding of the 
strong. 

Two such fragmentary farms lay on op- 
posite sides of the Meredith estate. One 
was the property of Ambrose Webb, a mar- 
ried but childless man who, thus exempt 
from necessity of raking the earth for swarm- 
ing progeny, had sown nearly all his land in 
grass and rented it as pasturage : no crops 
of children, no crops of grain. 

The other farm was of less importance. 
Had you ridden from the front door of the 
Merediths northward for nearly a mile, you 
would have reached the summit of a slope 
sweeping a wide horizon. Standing on this 
summit any one of these bright summer 
days, you could have seen at the foot of the 
slope, less than a quarter of a mile away on 
the steep opposite side, a rectangle of land 
covering some fifty acres. It lay crumpled 


T/^ Mettle of the Pasture 251 

into a rough depression in the landscape. 
A rivulet of clear water by virtue of indomi- 
table crook and turn made its way across this 
valley ; a woodland stood in one corner, 
nearly all its timber felled ; there were a few 
patches of grain so small that they made you 
think of the variegated peasant strips of 
agricultural France; and a few lots smaller 
still around a stable. The buildings huddled 
confusedly into this valley seemed to have 
backed toward each other like a flock of 
sheep, encompassed by peril and making a 
last stand in futile defence of their right to 
exist at all. 

What held the preeminence of castle in 
the collection of structures was a small brick 
house with one upper bedroom. The front 
entrance had no porch ; and beneath the 
door, as stepping-stones of entrance, lay two 
circular slabs of wood resembling sausage 
blocks, one half superposed. Over the door 
was a trellis of gourd vines now profusely 
blooming and bee-visited. Grouped around 
this castle in still lower feudal and vital de- 
pendence was a log cabin of one room and of 


252 The Mettle of the Pasture 

many more gourd vines, an ice-house, a house 
for fowls, a stable, a rick for hay, and a sag- 
ging shed for farm implements. 

If the appearance of the place suggested 
the struggles of a family on the verge of ex- 
tinction, this idea was further borne out by 
what looked like its determination to stand 
a long final siege at least in the matter of 
rations, for it swarmed with life. In the 
quiet crystalline air from dawn till after 
sunset the sounds arising from it were the 
clamor of a sincere, outspoken multitude of 
what man calls the dumb creatures. Evi- 
dently some mind, full of energy and fore- 
thought, had made its appearance late in the 
history of these failing generations and had 
begun a fight to reverse failure and turn 
back the tide of aggression. As the first 
step in self-recovery this rugged island of 
poverty must be made self-sustaining. 
Therefore it had been made to teem with 
animal and vegetable plenty. 

On one side of the house lay an orderly 
garden of vegetables and berry-bearing 
shrubs ; the yard itself was in reality an 


The Mettle of the Pasture 253 

orchard of fruit trees, some warmed by the 
very walls ; under the shed there were bee- 
gums alive with the nectar builders ; along 
the garden walks were frames for freighted 
grape-vines. The work of regeneration had 
been pushed beyond the limits of utilitarian- 
ism over into a certain crude domain of 
aesthetics. On one front window-sill what had 
been the annual Christmas box of raisins had 
been turned into a little hot-bed of flowering 
plants ; and under the panes of glass a dense 
forest of them, sun-drawn, looked like a 
harvest field swept by a storm. On the 
opposite window ledge an empty drum of 
figs was now topped with hardy jump-up- 
johnnies. It bore some resemblance to an 
enormous yellow muffin stuffed with blue- 
berries. In the garden big-headed peonies 
here and there fell over upon the young 
onions. The entire demesne lay white and 
green with tidiness under yellow sun and 
azure sky; for fences and outhouses, even 
the trunks of trees several feet up from the 
ground, glistened with whitewash. So that 
everywhere was seen the impress and guid- 


254 Mettle of the Pasture 

ance of a spirit evoking abundance, order, 
even beauty, out of what could so easily 
have been squalor and despondent wretched- 
ness. 

This was the home of Pansy Vaughan ; 
and Pansy was the explanation of everything 
beautiful and fruitful, the peaceful Joan of 
Arc of that valley, seeing rapt visions of the 
glory of her people. 

In the plain upper room of the plain 
brick house, on her hard white bed with her 
hard white thoughts, lay Pansy — sleepless 
throughout the night of Marguerite’s ball. 
The youngest of the children slept beside 
her ; two others lay in a trundle-bed across 
the room ; and the three were getting out of 
sleep all that there is in it for tired, healthy 
children. In the room below, her father 
and the eldest boy were resting ; and through 
the rafters of the flooring she could hear 
them both : her father a large, fluent, well- 
seasoned, self-comforting bassoon ; and her 
brother a sappy, inexperienced bassoon try- 
ing to imitate it. Wakefulness was a novel 
state for Pansy herself, who was always tired 


The Mettle of the Pasture 255 

when bedtime came and as full of wild 
vitality as one of her young guineas in the 
summer wheat ; so that she sank into slumber 
as a rock sinks into the sea, descending till it 
reaches the unstirred bottom. 

What kept her awake to-night was morti- 
fication that she had not been invited to the 
ball. She knew perfectly well that she was 
not entitled to an invitation, since the three 
Marguerites had never heard of her. She 
had never been to a fashionable party even 
in the country. But her engagement to 
Dent Meredith already linked her to him 
socially and she felt the tugging of those 
links : what were soon to become her rights 
had begun to be her rights already. An- 
other little thing troubled her: she had no 
flower to send him for his button-hole, to 
accompany her note wishing him a pleasant 
evening. She could not bear to give him 
anything common ; and Pansy believed that 
no one was needed to tell her what a com- 
mon thing is. 

For a third reason slumber refused to 
descend and weigh down her eyelids : on the 


256 The Mettle of the Pasture 

morrow she was to call upon Dent’s mother, 
and the thought of this call preoccupied her 
with terror. She was one of the bravest of 
souls ; but the terror which shook her was 
the terror that shakes them all — terror lest 
they be not loved. 

All her life she had looked with awe up- 
ward out of her valley toward that great 
house. Its lawns with stately clumps of 
evergreens, its many servants, its distant 
lights often seen twinkling in the windows 
at night, the tales that reached her of won- 
derful music and faery dancing ; the flashing 
family carriages which had so often whirled 
past her on the turnpike with scornful 
footman and driver — all these recollections 
revisited her to-night. In the morning 
she was to cross the boundary of this inac- 
cessible world as one who was to hold a high 
position in it. 

How pictures came crowding back ! One 
of the earliest recollections of childhood was 
hearing the scream of the Meredith peacocks 
as they drew their gorgeous plumage across 
the silent summer lawns ; at home they had 


The Mettle of the Pasture 257 

nothing better than fussing guineas. She 
had never come nearer to one of those proud 
birds than handling a set of tail feathers 
which Mrs. Meredith had presented to her 
mother for a family fly brush. Pansy had 
good reason to remember because she had 
often been required to stand beside the 
table and, one little bare foot set alter- 
nately on the other little bare foot, wield 
the brush over the dishes till arms and 
eyelids ached. 

Another of those dim recollections was 
pressing her face against the window-panes 
when the first snow began to fall on the 
scraggy cedars in the yard ; and as she began 
to sing softly to herself one of the ancient 
ditties of the children of the poor, “ Old 
Woman, picking Geese,*' she would dream 
of the magical flowers which they told her 
bloomed all winter in a glass house at the 
Merediths’ while there was ice on the pines 
outside. Big red roses and icicles separated 
only by a thin glass — she could hardly be- 
lieve it ; and she would cast her eye toward 
their own garden where a few black withered 


258 The Mettle of the Pasture 

stalks marked the early death-beds of the 
pinks and jonquils. 

But even in those young years Pansy had 
little time to look out of windows and to 
dream of anything. She must help, she 
must work ; for she was the oldest of five 
children, and the others followed so closely 
that they pushed her out of her garments. 
A hardy, self-helpful child life, bravened by 
necessities, never undermined by luxuries. 
For very dolls Pansy used small dried 
gourds, taking the big round end of the 
gourd for the head of the doll and all the 
rest of the gourd for all the rest of the body. 

One morning when she was fourteen, the 
other children were clinging with tears to her 
in a poor, darkened room — she to be little 
mother to them henceforth : they never 
clung in vain. 

That same autumn when woods were 
turning red and wild grapes turning black 
and corn turning yellow, a cherished rockaway 
drawn by a venerated horse, that tried to 
stop for conversation on the highroad when- 
ever he passed a neighbor’s vehicle, rattled 


The Mettle of the Pasture 259 

out on the turnpike with five children in it 
and headed for town : Pansy driving, taking 
herself and the rest to the public school. 
For years thereafter, through dark and bright 
days, she conveyed that nest of hungry fledg- 
lings back and forth over bitter and weary 
miles, getting their ravenous minds fed at one 
end of the route, and their ravenous bodies 
fed at the other. If the harness broke. 
Pansy got out with a string. If the horse 
dropped a shoe, or dropped himself. Pansy 
picked up what she could. In town she 
drove to the blacksmith shop and to all 
other shops whither business called her. 
Her friends were the blacksmith and the 
tollgate keeper, her teachers — all who knew 
her and they were few : she had no time for 
friendships. At home the only frequent 
visitor was Ambrose Webb, and Pansy did 
not care for Ambrose. The first time she 
remembered seeing him at dinner, she — a 
very little girl — had watched his throat with 
gloomy fascination. Afterward her mother 
told her he had an Adam’s apple ; and 
Pansy, working obscurely at some problem 


26o The Mettle of the Pasture 

of theology, had secretly taken down the 
Bible and read the story of Adam and the 
fearful fruit. Ambrose became associated 
in her mind with the Fall of Man ; she dis- 
liked the proximity. 

No time for friendships. Besides the 
labors at school, there was the nightly care 
of her father on her return, the mending of 
his clothes ; there was the lonely burning of 
her candle far into the night as she toiled 
over lessons. When she had learned all 
that could be taught her at the school, she 
left the younger children there and victori- 
ously transferred herself for a finishing course 
to a seminary of the town, where she was now 
proceeding to graduate. 

This was Pansy, child of plain, poor, 
farmer folk, immemorially dwelling close 
to the soil ; unlettered, unambitious, long- 
lived, abounding in children, without physi- 
cal beauty, but marking the track of their 
generations by a path lustrous with right- 
doing. For more than a hundred years on 
this spot the land had lessened around 
them ; but the soil had worked upward into 


The Mettle of the Pasture 261 

their veins, as into the stalks of plants, the 
trunks of trees ; and that clean, thrilling sap 
of the earth, that vitality of the exhaustless 
mother which never goes for nothing, had 
produced one heavenly flower at last — 
shooting forth with irrepressible energy a 
soul unspoiled and morally sublime. When 
the top decays, as it always does in the lapse 
of time, whence shall come regeneration if 
not from below? It is the plain people 
who are the eternal breeding grounds of 
high destinies. 

In the long economy of nature, this, per- 
haps, was the meaning and the mission of 
this lofty child who now lay sleepless, shaken 
to the core with thoughts of the splendid 
world over into which she was to journey 
to-morrow. 

At ten o’clock next morning she set out. 

It had been a question with her whether 
she should go straight across the fields and 
climb the fences, or walk around by the 
turnpike and open the gates. Her prefer- 
ence was for fields and fences, because that 


262 The Mettle of the Pasture 

was the short and direct way, and Pansy was 
used to the short and direct way of getting 
to the end of her desires. But, as has been 
said, she had already fallen into the habit of 
considering what was due her and becoming 
to her as a young Mrs. Meredith ; and it 
struck her that this lady would not climb 
field fences, at least by preference and with 
facility. Therefore she chose the highroad, 
gates, dust, and dignity. 

It could scarcely be said that she was 
becomingly^ raimented. Pansy made her 
own dresses, and the dresses declared the 
handiwork of their maker. The one she 
wore this morning was chiefly characterized 
by a pair of sleeves designed by herself ; 
from the elbow to the wrist there hung green 
pouches that looked like long pea-pods not 
well filled. Her only ornament was a large 
oval pin at her throat which had somewhat 
the same relation to a cameo as that borne by 
Wedgwood china. It represented a white 
horse drinking at a white roadside well ; 
beside the shoulder of the horse stood a 
white angel, many times taller, with an arm 


The Mettle of the Pasture 263 

thrown caressingly around the horse’s neck ; 
while a stunted forest tree extended a solitary 
branch over the horse’s tail. 

She had been oppressed with dread that 
she should not arrive in time. No time had 
been set, no one knew that she was coming, 
and the forenoons were long. Nevertheless 
impatience to encounter Mrs. Meredith con- 
sumed her ; and once on the way, inasmuch as 
Pansy usually walked as though she had been 
told to go for the doctor, but not to run, she 
was not long in arriving. 

When she reached the top of the drive in 
front of the Meredith homestead, her face, 
naturally colorless, was a consistent red ; and 
her heart, of whose existence she had never 
in her life been reminded, was beating audi- 
bly. Although she said to herself that it was 
bad manners, she shook out her handkerchief, 
which she had herself starched and ironed 
with much care; and gathering her skirts 
aside, first to the right and then to the 
left, dusted her shoes, lifting each a little 
into the air, and she pulled some grass from 
around the buttons. With the other half 


264 The Mettle of the Pasture 

of her handkerchief she wiped her brow; 
but a fresh bead of perspiration instantly 
appeared ; a few drops even stood on her 
dilated nostrils — raindrops on the eaves. 
Even had the day been cool she must have 
been warm, for she wore more layers of cloth- 
ing than usual, having deposited some fresh 
strata in honor of her wealthy mother-in-law. 

As Pansy stepped from behind the pines, 
with one long, quivering breath of final self- 
adjustment, she suddenly stood still, arrested 
by the vision of so glorious a hue and shape 
that, for the moment, everything else was 
forgotten. On the pavement just before 
her, as though to intercept her should she 
attempt to cross the Meredith threshold, 
stood a peacock, expanding to the utmost 
its great fan of pride and love. It confronted 
her with its high-born composure and inso- 
lent grace, all its jewelled feathers flashing in 
the sun ; then with a little backward move- 
ment of its royal head and convulsion of its 
breast, it threw out its cry, — the cry she had 
heard in the distance through dreaming years, 
— warning all who heard that she was there. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 265 

the intruder. Then lowering its tail and draw- 
ing its plumage in fastidiously against the 
body, it crossed her path in an evasive circle 
and disappeared behind the pines. 

Oh, Dent, why did you ever ask me to 
marry you ! thought Pansy, in a moment 
of soul failure. 

Mrs. Meredith was sitting on the veranda 
and was partly concealed* by a running rose. 
She was not expecting visitors ; she had 
much to think of this morning, and she rose 
wonderingly and reluctantly as Pansy came 
forward : she did not know who it was, and 
she did not advance. 

Pansy ascended the steps and paused, look- 
ing with wistful eyes at the great lady who 
was to be her mother, but who did not even 
greet her. 

“Good morning, Mrs. Meredith,” she said, 
in a shrill treble, holding herself somewhat in 
the attitude of a wooden soldier, “ I suppose I 
shall have to introduce myself : it is Pansy.” 

The surprise faded from Mrs. Meredith’s 
face, the reserve melted. With outstretched 
hands she advanced smiling. 


266 The Mettle of the Pasture 

How do you do, Pansy,” she said with 
motherly gentleness ; “ it is very kind of 
you to come and see me, and I am very 
glad to know you. Shall we go in where 
it is cooler ? ” 

They entered the long hall. Near the door 
stood a marble bust : each wall was lined with 
portraits. She passed between Dent's ances- 
tors into the large darkened parlors. 

‘‘ Sit here, won't you ? '' said Mrs. Mere- 
dith, and she even pushed gently forward 
the most luxurious chair within her reach. 
To Pansy it seemed large enough to hold 
all the children. At home she was used to 
chairs that were not only small, but hard. 
Wherever the bottom of a chair seemed to 
be in that household, there it was — if it was 
anywhere. Actuated now by this lifelong 
faith in literal furniture, she sat down with 
the utmost determination where she was bid ; 
but the bottom offered no resistance to her 
descending weight and she sank. She threw 
out her hands and her hat tilted over her 
eyes. It seemed to her that she was en- 
closed up to her neck in what might have 


The Mettle of the Pasture 267 

been a large morocco bath-tub — which came 
to an end at her knees. She pushed back 
her hat, crimson. 

That was a surprise,’* she said, frankly 
admitting the fault, “ but there’ll never be 
another such.” 

I am afraid you found it warm walking. 
Pansy,” said Mrs. Meredith, opening her 
fan and handing it to her. 

Oh, no, Mrs. Meredith, I never fan ! ” 
said Pansy, declining breathlessly. I have 
too much use for my hands. I’d rather 
suffer and do something else. Besides, you 
know I am used to walking in the sun. I 
am very fond of botany, and I am out of 
doors for hours at a time when I can find 
the chance.” 

Mrs. Meredith was delighted at the op- 
portunity, to make easy vague comment on a 
harmless subject. 

What a beautiful study it must be,” she 
said with authority. 

“ Must be ! ” exclaimed Pansy ; why, 
Mrs. Meredith, don’t you know ? Don’t 
you understand botany ? ” 


268 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Pansy had an idea that in Dent’s home 
botany was as familiarly apprehended as peas 
and turnips in hers. 

“ I am afraid not,” replied Mrs. Meredith, 
a little coolly. Her mission had been to 
adorn and people the earth, not to study it. 
And among persons of her acquaintance it 
was the prime duty of each not to lay bare 
the others’ ignorance, but to make a little 
knowledge appear as great as possible. It 
was discomfiting to have Pansy charge 
upon what after all was only a vacant spot 
in her mind. She added, as defensively 
intimating that the subject had another 
dangerous side : 

“ When I was a girl, young ladies at 
school did not learn much botany ; but 
they paid a great deal of attention to their 
manners.” 

“ Why did not they learn it after they had 
left school and after they had learned man- 
ners?” inquired Pansy, with ruthless enthu- 
siasm. “ It is such a mistake to stop learning 
everything simply because you have stopped 
school. Don’t you think so ? ” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 269 

“ When a girl marries, my dear, she soon 
has other studies to take up. She has a 
house and husband. The girls of my day, 
I am afraid, gave up their botanies for their 
duties : it may be different now.” 

No matter how many children I may 
have,” said Pansy, positively, “ I shall never 
— give — up — botany ! Besides, you know, 
Mrs. Meredith, that we study botany only 
during the summer months, and I do 
hope — ” she broke off suddenly. 

Mrs. Meredith smoothed her dress ner- 
vously and sought to find her chair com- 
fortable. 

‘^Your mother named you Pansy,” she 
remarked, taking a gloomy view of the pres- 
ent moment and of the whole future of this 
acquaintanceship. 

That this should be the name of a woman 
was to her a mistake, a crime. Her sense 
of fitness demanded that names should be 
given to infants with reference to their adult 
characters and eventual positions in life. She 
liked her own name “ Caroline ” ; and she 
liked ‘^Margaret” and all such womanly. 


270 The Mettle of the Pasture 

motherly, dignified, stately appellatives. As 
for “Pansy,” it had been the name of one of 
her husband's shorthorns, a premium animal 
at the county fairs ; the silver cup was on the 
sideboard in the dining room now. 

“ Yes, Mrs. Meredith,” replied Pansy, 
“ that was the name my mother gave me. I 
think she must have had a great love of 
flowers. She named me for the best she 
had. I hope I shall never forget that,” and 
Pansy looked at Mrs. Meredith with a face 
of such gravity and pride that silence lasted 
in the parlors for a while. 

Buried in Pansy's heart was one secret, 
one sorrow : that her mother had been poor. 
H er father wore his yoke ungalled ; he 
loved rough work, drew his religion from 
privations, accepted hardship as the chasten- 
ing that insures reward. But that her 
mother's hands should have been folded and 
have returned to universal clay without ever 
having fondled the finer things of life — this 
to Pansy was remembrance to start tears on 
the brightest day. 

“ I think she named you beautifully,” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 271 

said Mrs. Meredith, breaking that silence, 
‘^and I am glad you told me. Pansy.” 
She lingered with quick approval on the 
name. 

But she turned the conversation at once 
to less personal channels. The beauty of 
the country at this season seemed to offer 
her an inoffensive escape. She felt that she 
could handle it at least with tolerable discre- 
tion. She realized that she was not deep on 
the subject, but she did feel fluent. 

I suppose you take the same pride that 
we all do in such a beautiful country.” 

Sunlight instantly shone out on Pansy’s 
face. Dent was a geologist; and since she 
conceived herself to be on trial before Mrs. 
Meredith this morning, it was of the first 
importance that she demonstrate her sym- 
pathy and intelligent appreciation of his field 
of work. 

Indeed I do feel the greatest pride 
in it, Mrs. Meredith,” she replied. “ I 
study it a great deal. But of course you 
know perfectly the whole formation of this 
region.” 


272 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Mrs. Meredith coughed with frank dis- 
couragement. 

“ I do not know it,” she admitted dryly. 
“ I suppose I ought to know it, but I do not. 
I believe school-teachers understand these 
things. I am afraid I am a very ignorant 
woman. No one of my acquaintances is 
very learned. We are not used to scholar- 
ship.” 

I know all the strata,” said Pansy. ‘‘ I 
tell the children stories of how the Masto- 
don once virtually lived in our stable, and 
that millions of years ago there were Ptero- 
dactyls under their bed.” 

“ I think it a misfortune for a young 
woman to have much to say to children 
about Pterodactyls under their bed — is that 
the name ? Such things never seem to have 
troubled Solomon, and I believe he was re- 
puted wise.” She did not care for the old- 
fashioned reference herself, but she thought 
it would affect Pansy. 

‘‘The children in the public schools know 
things that Solomon never heard of,” said 
Pansy, contemptuously. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 273 

“ I do not doubt it in the least, my dear. 
I believe it was not his knowledge that made 
him rather celebrated, but his wisdom. But 
I am not up in Solomon ! she admitted 
hastily, retreating from the subject in new 
dismay. 

The time had arrived for Pansy to depart ; 
but she reclined in her morocco alcove with 
somewhat the stiffness of a tilted bottle and 
somewhat the contour. She felt extreme 
dissatisfaction with her visit and reluctance 
to terminate it. 

Her idea of the difference between people 
in society and other people was that it hinged 
ornamentally upon inexhaustible and scanty 
knowledge. If Mrs. Meredith was a social 
leader, and she herself had no social standing 
at all, it was mainly because that lady was pub- 
licly recognized as a learned woman, and the 
world had not yet found out that she herself 
was anything but ignorant. Being ignorant 
was to her mind the quintessence of being 
common; and as she had undertaken this 
morning to prove to Dent’s mother that she 
was not common, she had only to prove that 


274 Mettle of the Pasture 

she W£S learned. For days she had pre- 
pared ur this interview with that conception 
of its meaning. She had converted her mind 
into a kind of rapid-firing gun ; she had con- 
densed her knowledge into conversational 
cartridges. No sooner had she taken up a 
mental position before Mrs. Meredith than 
the parlors resounded with light, rapid detona- 
tions of information. That lady had but to 
release the poorest, most lifeless, little clay 
pigeon of a remark and Pansy shattered it 
in mid air and refixed suspicious eyes on 
the trap. 

But the pigeons soon began to fly less fre- 
quently. And finally they gave out. And 
now she must take nearly all her cartridges 
home ! Mrs. Meredith would think her 
ignorant, therefore she would think her 
common. If Pansy had only known what 
divine dulness, what ambrosial stupidity, 
often reclines on those Olympian heights 
called society ! 

At last she rose. Neither had mentioned 
Dent’s name, though each had been thinking 
of him all the time. Not a word had been 


The Mettle of the Pasture 275 

spoken to indicate the recognition of a rela- 
tionship which one of them so desired and the 
other so dreaded. Pansy might merely have 
hurried over to ask Mrs. Meredith for the 
loan of an ice-cream freezer or for a setting 
of eggs. On the mother’s part this silence 
was kindly meant : she did not think it 
right to take for granted what might never 
come to pass. Uppermost in her mind was 
the cruelty of accepting Pansy as her 
daughter-in-law this morning with the possi- 
bility of rejecting her afterward. 

As Pansy walked reluctantly out into the 
hall, she stopped with a deep wish in her 
candid eyes. 

“ Oh, Mrs. Meredith, I should so much 
like to see the portrait of Dent’s father: he 
has often spoken to me about it.” 

Mrs. Meredith led her away in silence to 
where the portrait hung, and the two stood 
looking at it side by side. She resisted a 
slight impulse to put her arm around the 
child. When they returned to the front of 
the house, Pansy turned : 

“ Do you think you will ever love me ? ” 


276 The Mettle of the Pasture 

The carriage was at the door. “ You 
must not walk/' said Mrs. Meredith, “ the 
sun is too hot now.” 

As Pansy stepped into the carriage, she 
cast a suspicious glance at the cushions : 
Meredith upholstery was not to be trusted, 
and she seated herself warily. 

Mrs. Meredith put her hand through the 
window : You must come to see me soon 

again. Pansy. I am a poor visitor, but I 
shall try to call on you in a few days.” 

She went back to her seat on the veranda. 

It has been said that her insight into good- 
ness was her strength ; she usually had a way 
of knowing at once, as regards the character 
of people, what she was ever to know at all. 
Her impressions of Pansy unrolled them- 
selves disconnectedly : 

She makes mistakes, but she does not 
know how to do wrong. Guile is not in 
her. She is so innocent that she does not 
realize sometimes the peril of her own words. 
She is proud — a great deal prouder than 
Dent. To her, life means work and duty; 
more than that, it means love. She is am- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 277 

bitious, and ambition, in her case, would be 
indispensable. She did not claim Dent: I 
appreciate that. She is a perfectly brave 
girl, and it is cowardice that makes so many 
women hypocrites. She will improve — she 
improved while she was here. But oh, every- 
thing else ! No figure, no beauty, no grace, no 
tact, no voice, no hands, no feet, no waist, no 
back, no shoulders, no anything ! Dent says 
there are cold bodies which he calls planets with- 
out atmosphere : he has found one to revolve 
about him. If she only had some clouds ! A 
mist here and there, so that everything would 
not be so plain, so exposed, so terribly open ! 
But neither has he any clouds, any mists, any 
atmosphere. And if she only would not so 
try to expose other people 1 If she had not 
so trampled upon me in my ignorance ; and 
with such a sense of triumph ! I was never 
so educated in my life by a visitor. The 
amount of information she imparted in half 
an hour — how many months it would have 
served the purpose of a well-bred woman ! 
And her pride in her family — were there 
ever such little brothers and sisters outside 


278 The Mettle of the Pasture 

a royal family ! And her devotion to her 
father, and remembrance of her mother. I 
shall go to see her, and be received, I sup- 
pose, somewhere between the griddle and the 
churn.” 

As Pansy was driven home, feeling under 
herself for the first time the elasticity of a 
perfect carriage, she experimented with her 
posture. This carriage is not to be sat in 
in the usual way,” she said. And indeed it 
was not. In the family rockaway there was 
constant need of muscular adjustment to dif- 
ferent shocks at successive moments ; here 
muscular surrender was required : a comfort- 
able collapse — and there you were ! 

Trouble awaited her at home. Owing to 
preoccupation with her visit she had, before 
setting out, neglected much of her morning 
work. She had especially forgotten the hun- 
gry multitude of her dependants. The chil- 
dren, taking advantage of her absence, had 
fed only themselves. As a consequence, the 
trustful lives around the house had suffered 
a great wrong, and they were attempting to 
describe it to each other. The instant Pansy 


The Mettle of the Pasture 279 

descended from the carriage the ducks, massed 
around the doorsteps, discovered her, and 
with frantic outcry and outstretched necks 
ran to find out what it all meant. The sig- 
nal was taken up by other species and genera. 
In the stable lot the calves responded as the 
French horn end of the orchestra; and the 
youngest of her little brothers, who had 
climbed into a fruit tree as a lookout for 
her return, in scrambling hurriedly down, 
dropped to the earth with the boneless thud 
of an opossum. 

Pansy walked straight up to her room, 
heeding nothing, leaving a wailing wake. 
She locked herself in. It was an hour be- 
fore dinner and she needed all those mo- 
ments for herself. 

She sat on the edge of her bed and new 
light brought new wretchedness. It was 
not, after all, quantity of information that 
made the chief difference between herself 
and Dent's mother. The other things, all 
the other things — would she ever, ever 
acquire them ! Finally the picture rose 
before her of how the footman had looked 


28 o The Mettle of' the Pasture 

as he had held the carriage door open for 
her, and the ducks had sprawled over his 
feet ; and she threw herself on the bed, hat 
and all, and burst out crying with rage and 
grief and mortification. 

“ She will think I am common,” she 
moaned, “ and I am not common ! Why 
did I say such things ? It is not my way 
of talking. Why did I criticise the way the 
portrait was hung ^ And she will think this 
is what I really am, and it is not what I am ! 
She will think I do not even know how to 
sit in a chair, and she will tell Dent, and Dent 
will believe her, and what will become of 
me r 


“ Pansy,” said Dent next afternoon, as 
they were in the woods together, “ you 
have won my mother’s heart.” 

Oh, Dent,”.she exclaimed, tears starting, 
I was afraid she would not like me. How 
could she like me, knowing me no better ? ” 
She doesn’t yet know that she likes you,” 
he replied, with his honest thinking and his 
honest speech, “ but I can see that she trusts 


The Mettle of the Pasture 281 

you and respects you ; and with my mother 
everything else follows in time.” 

“ I was embarrassed. I did myself such 
injustice.” 

‘‘ It is something you never did any one 
else.” 

He had been at work in his quarry on the 
vestiges of creation ; the quarry lay at an 
outcrop of that northern hill overlooking 
the valley in which she lived. Near by was 
a woodland, and she had come out for some 
work of her own in which he guided her. 
They lay on the grass now side by side. 

“ 1 am working on the plan of our house. 
Pansy. I expect to begin to build in the 
autumn. I have chosen this spot for the 
site. How do you like it ? ” 

“ I like it very well. For one reason, I 
can always see the old place from it.” 

My father left his estate to be equally 
divided between Rowan and me. Of course 
he could not divide the house ; that goes to 
Rowan : it is a good custom for this country 
as it was a good custom for our forefathers 
in England. But I get an equivalent and 


282 The Mettle of the Pasture 

am to build for myself on this part of the 
land : my portion is over here. You see we 
have always been divided only by a few 
fences and they do not divide at all.” 

“ The same plants grow on each side. 
Dent.” 

“ There is one thing I have to tell you. 
If you are coming into our family, you ought 
to know it beforehand. There is a shadow 
over our house. It grows deeper every year 
and we do not know what it means. That is, 
my mother and I do not know. It is some 
secret in Rowan’s life. He has never offered 
to tell us, and of course we have never 
asked him, and in fact mother and I have 
never even spoken to each other on the 
subject.” 

It was the first time she had even seen sad- 
ness in his eyes ; and she impulsively clasped 
his hand. He returned the pressure and 
then their palms separated. No franker sign 
of their love had ever passed between them. 

He went on very gravely : Rowan was 
the most open nature I ever saw when he 
was a boy. I remember this now. I did 


The Mettle of the Pasture 283 

not think of it then. I believe he was the 
happiest. You know we are all pantheists 
of some kind nowadays. I could never see 
much difference between a living thing that 
stands rooted in the earth like a tree and a 
living thing whose destiny it is to move the 
foot perpetually over the earth, as man. The 
union is as close in one case as in the other. 
Do you remember the blind man of the New 
Testament who saw men as trees walking? 
Rowan seemed to me, as I recall him now, 
to have risen out of the earth through my 
father and mother — a growth of wild nature, 
with the seasons in his face, with the blood 
of the planet rising into his veins as inti- 
mately as it pours into a spring oak or into 
an autumn grape-vine. I often heard Pro- 
fessor Hardage call him the earth-born. He 
never called any one else that. He was wild 
with happiness until he went to college. He 
came back all changed; and life has been 
uphill with him ever since. Lately things 
have grown worse. The other day I was 
working on the plan of our house ; he came 
in and looked over my shoulder : ^ Don't 


284 The Mettle of the Pasture 

build, Dent,’ he said, ‘ bring your wife here,’ 
and he walked quickly out of the room. I 
knew what that meant : he has been unfortu- 
nate in his love affair and is ready to throw 
up the whole idea of marrying. This is our 
trouble. Pansy. It may explain anything 
that may have been lacking in my mother’s 
treatment of you ; she is not herself at all.” 
He spoke with great tenderness and he 
looked disturbed. 

Can I do anything ? ” What had she 
been all her life but burden-bearer, sorrow- 
sharer ? 

‘‘ Nothing.” 

‘‘ If I ever can, will you tell me ? ” 

This is the only secret I have kept from 
you. Pansy. I am sure you have kept none 
from me. I believe that if I could read 
everything in you, I should find nothing I 
did not wish to know.” 

She did not reply for a while. Then she 
said solemnly : “ I have one secret. There 
is something I try to hide from every human 
being and I always shall. It is not a bad 
secret. Dent. But I do not wish to tell you 


The Mettle of the Pasture 285 

what it is, and I feel sure you will never ask 
me/’ 

He turned his eyes to her clear with un- 
shakable confidence : ‘‘ I never will.” 

Pansy was thinking of her mother’s 
poverty. 

They sat awhile in silence. 

He had pulled some stems of seeding 
grass and drew them slowly across his palm, 
pondering Life. Then he began to talk to 
her in the way that made them so much at 
home with one another. 

“ Pansy, men used to speak of the secrets 
of Nature : there is not the slightest evi- 
dence that Nature has a secret. They used 
to speak of the mysteries of the Creator. I 
am not one of those who claim to be au- 
thorities on the traits of the Creator. Some 
of my ancestors considered themselves such. 
But I do say that men are coming more and 
more to think of Him as having no myste- 
ries. We have no evidence, as the old hymn 
declares, that He loves to move in a myste- 
rious way. The entire openness of Nature 
and of the Creator — these are the new ways 


286 The Mettle of the Pasture 

of thinking. They will be the only ways ol 
thinking in the future unless civilization 
sinks again into darkness. What we call 
secrets and mysteries of the universe are the 
limitations of our powers and our knowledge. 
The little that we actually do know about 
Nature, how open it is, how unsecretive ! 
There is nowhere a sign that the Creator 
wishes to hide from us even what is Life. 
If we ever discover what Life is, no doubt 
we shall then realize that it contained no 
mystery.” 

She loved to listen, feeling that he was 
drawing her to his way of thinking for the 
coming years. 

“ It was the folly and the crime of all 
ancient religions that their priesthoods veiled 
them ; whenever the veil was rent, like the 
veil of Isis, it was not God that men found 
behind it : it was nothing. The religions of 
the future will have no veils. As far as they 
can set before their worshippers truth at all, it 
will be truth as open as the day. The Great 
Teacher in the New Testament — what an 
eternal lesson on light itself : that is the 


The Mettle of the Pasture 287 

beauty of his Gospel. And his Apostles — ■ 
where do you find him saying to them, 
‘ Preach my word to all men as the secrets 
of a priesthood and the mysteries of the 
Father’? 

It is the tragedy of man alone that he 
has his secrets. No doubt the time will 
come when I shall have mine and when I 
shall have to hide things from you. Pansy, 
as Rowan has his and hides things from us. 
Life is full of things that we cannot tell 
because they would injure us ; and of things 
that w^e cannot tell because they would injure 
others. But surely we should all like to live 
in a time when a man’s private life would be 
his only life.” 

After a silence he came back to her with a 
quiet laugh : Here I am talking about the 
future of the human race, and we have never 
agreed upon our marriage ceremony ! What 
a lover ! ” 

“ I want the most beautiful ceremony in 
the world.” 

The ceremony of your church ? ” he 
asked with great respect, though wincing. 


288 The Mettle of the Pasture 

“My church has no ceremony : every 
minister in it has his own ; and rather than 
have one of them write mine, I think I should 
rather write it myself : shouldn’t you ? ” 

“ I think I should,” he said, laughing. 

He drew a little book out of his breast 
pocket : “ Perhaps you will like this : a great 
many people have been married by it.” 

“ I want the same ceremony that is used 
for kings and queens, for the greatest and 
the best people of the earth. I will marry 
you by no other ! ” 

“ A good many of them have used this,” 
and he read to her the ceremony of his 
church. 

When he finished neither spoke. 

It was a clear summer afternoon. Under 
them was the strength of rocks ; around 
them the noiseless growth of needful things ; 
above them the upward-drawing light : two 
working children of the New World, two 
pieces of Nature’s quietism. 


II 


It was the second morning after Mar- 
guerite’s ball. 

Marguerite, to herself a girl no longer, 
lay in the middle of a great, fragrant, drowsy 
bed of carved walnut, once her grandmother’s. 
She had been dreaming; she had just awak- 
ened. The sun, long since risen above the 
trees of the yard, was slanting through the 
leaves and roses that formed an outside lat- 
tice to her window-blinds. 

These blinds were very old. They had 
been her grandmother’s when she was Mar- 
guerite’s age ; and one day, not long before 
this. Marguerite, pillaging ‘the attic, had 
found them and brought them down, with 
adoring eyes, and put them up before her 
own windows. They were of thin muslin, 
and on them were painted scenes represent- 
ing the River of Life, with hills and castles, 
valleys and streams, in a long series ; at the 
end there was a faint vision of a crystal dome 
u 289 


290 The Mettle of the Pasture 

in the air — the Celestial City — nearly washed 
away. You looked at these scenes through 
the arches of a ruined castle. A young man 
(on one blind) has just said farewell to his 
parents on the steps of the castle and is 
rowing away down the River of Life. At 
the prow of his boat is the figurehead of a 
winged woman holding an hour-glass. 

Marguerite lay on her side, sleepily con- 
templating the whole scene between her 
thick, bosky lashes. She liked everything 
but the winged woman holding the hour- 
glass. Had she been that woman, she would 
have dropped the hour-glass into the blue, 
burying water, and have reached up her 
hand for the young man to draw her into 
the boat with him. And she would have 
taken off her wings and cast them away 
upon the hurrying river. To have been 
alone with him, no hour-glass, no wings, 
rowing away on Life's long voyage, past 
castles and valleys, and never ending woods* 
and streams! As to the Celestial City, she 
would have liked her blinds better if the 
rains of her grandmother's youth had washed 


The Mettle of the Pasture 291 

it away altogether. It was not the desirable 
end of such a journey : she did not care to 
land there. 

Marguerite slipped drowsily over to the 
edge of the bed in order to be nearer the 
blinds ; and she began to study what was 
left of the face of the young man just start- 
ing on his adventures from the house of his 
fathers. Who was he? Of whom did he 
cause her to think ? She sat up in bed and 
propped her face in the palms of her hands 
— the April face with its October eyes — 
and lapsed into what had been her dreams of 
the night. The laces of her nightgown 
dropped from her wrists to her elbows ; the 
masses of her hair, like sunlit autumn maize, 
fell down over her neck and shoulders into 
the purity of the bed. 

Until the evening of her party the world 
had been to Marguerite something that 
arranged all her happiness and never inter- 
fered with it. Only soundness and loveli- 
ness of nature, inborn, undestroyable, could 
have withstood such luxury, indulgence, sur- 
feit as she had always known. 


292 The Mettle of the Pasture 

On that night which was designed to end 
for her the life of childhood, she had, for the 
first time, beheld the symbol of the world's 
diviner beauty — a cross. All her guests 
had individually greeted her as though each 
were happier in her happiness. Except one 
— he did not care. He had spoken to her 
upon entering with the manner of one who 
wished himself elsewhere ; he alone brought 
no tribute to her of any kind, in his eyes, 
by his smile, through the pressure of his 
hand. 

The slight wounded her at the moment ; 
she had not expected to have a guest to 
whom she would be nothing and to whom 
it would seem no unkindness to let her know 
this. The slight left its trail of pain as the 
evening wore on and he did not come near 
her. Several times, while standing close to 
him, she had looked her surprise, had shad- 
owed her face with coldness for him to see. 
For the first time in her life she felt herself 
rejected, suffered the fascination of that pain. 
Afterward she had intentionally pressed so 
close to him in the throng of her guests that 


The Mettle of the Pasture 293 

her arm brushed his sleeve. At last she had 
disengaged herself from all others and had 
even gone to him with the inquiries of a 
hostess ; and he had forced himself to smile 
at her and had forgotten her while he spoke 
to her — as though she were a child. All 
her nature was exquisitely loosened that 
night, and quivering ; it was not a time to be 
so wounded and to forget. 

She did not forget as she sat in her room 
after all had gone. She took the kindnesses 
and caresses, the congratulations and tri- 
umphs, of those full-fruited hours, pressed 
them together and derived merely one clear 
drop of bitterness — the languorous poison 
of one haunting desire. It followed her into 
her sleep and through the next day ; and 
not until night came again and she had 
passed through the gateway of dreams was 
she happy : for in those dreams it was he 
who was setting out from the house of his 
fathers on a voyage down the River of Life ; 
and he had paused and turned and called 
her to come to him and be with him always. 

Marguerite lifted her face from her palms, 


294 Mettle of the Pasture 

as she finished her revery. She slipped to 
the floor out of the big walnut bed, and 
crossing to the blinds laid her fingers on the 
young man’s shoulder. It was the move- 
■ ment with which one says : “ I have come.” 

With a sigh she drew one of the blinds 
aside and looked out upon the leaves and 
roses of her yard and at the dazzling sun- 
light. Within a few feet of her a bird was 
singing. How can you ? ” she said. “ If 
you loved, you would be silent. Your wings 
would droop. You could neither sing nor 
fly.” She turned dreamily back into her 
room and wandered over to a little table on 
which her violin lay in its box. She lifted 
the top and thrummed the strings. “ How 
could I ever have loved you ? ” 

She dressed absent-mindedly. How 
should she spend the forenoon ? Some of 
her friends would be coming to talk over the 
party ; there would be callers ; there was the 
summer-house, her hammock, her phaeton; 
there were nooks and seats, cool, fragrant; 
there were her mother and grandmother to 
prattle to and caress. “ No,” she said, not 


The Mettle of the Pasture 295 

any of them. One person only. I must 
see himT 

She thought of the places where she could 
probably see him if he should be in town 
that day. There was only one — the library. 
Often, when there, she had seen him pass in 
and out. He had no need to come for 
books or periodicals, all these he could have 
at home ; but she had heard the librarian 
and him at work over the files of old papers 
containing accounts of early agricultural 
affairs and the first cattle-shows of the state. 
She resolved to go to the library : what 
desire had she ever known that she had not 
gratified ? 

When Marguerite, about eleven o'clock, 
approached the library a little fearfully, she 
saw Barbee pacing to and fro on the sidewalk 
before the steps. She felt inclined to turn 
back ; he was the last person she cared to 
meet this morning. Play with him had 
suddenly ended as a picnic in a spring grove 
is interrupted by a tempest. 

I ought to tell him at once,” she said ; 
and she went forward. 


296 The Mettle of the Pasture 

He came to meet her — with a countenance 
dissatisfied and reproachful. It struck her 
that his thin large ears looked yellowish 
instead of red and that his freckles had 
apparently spread and thickened. She asked 
herself why she had never before realized 
’iow boyish he was. 

Marguerite/’ he said at once, as though 
the matter were to be taken firmly in hand, 
you treated me shabbily the night of your 
party. It was unworthy of you. And I 
will not stand it. You ought not to be such 
a child ! ” 

Her breath was taken away. She blanched 
and her eyes dilated as she looked at him : 
the lash of words had never been laid on 
her. 

Are you calling me to account ? ” she 
asked. “ Then I shall call you to an account. 
When you came up to speak to grandmother 
and to mamma and me, you spoke to us as 
though you were an indifferent suitor of 
mine — as though I were a suitor of yours. 
As soon as you were gone, mamma said to me : 
^What have you been doing, Marguerite, 


The Mettle of the Pasture 297 

that he should think you are in love with 
him — that he should treat us as though we 
all wished to catch him? * ” 

“ That was a mistake of your mother’s. 
But after what had passed between us — ” 

‘‘No matter what had passed between us, 
I do not think that a man would virtually 
tell a girl’s mother on her : a boy might.” 

He grew ashen; and he took his hand 
out of his pockets and straightened himself 
from his slouchy lounging posture, and 
stood before her, his head in the air on his 
long neck like a young stag affronted 
and enraged. 

“It is true, I have sometimes been too 
much like a boy with you,” he said. “ Have 
you made it possible for me to be anything 
else?” 

“ Then I’ll make it possible for you now : 
to begin, I am too old to be called to 
account for my actions — except by those 
who have the right.” 

“You mean, that I have no right — after 
what has passed — ” 

“ Nothing has passed between us ! ” 


298 The Mettle of the Pasture 

‘‘ Marguerite/’ he said, “ do you mean that 
you do not love me ? ” 

Can you not see ? ” 

She was standing on the steps above him. 
The many-fluted parasol with its long silken 
fringes rested on one shoulder. Her face 
in the dazzling sunlight, under her hat, had 
lost its gayety. Her eyes rested upon his 
with perfect quietness. 

“ I do not ' believe that you yourself 
know whether you love me,” he said, laugh- 
ing pitifully. His big mouth twitched and 
his love had come back into his eyes quickly 
enough. 

“ Let me tell you how T know,” she said, 
with more kindness. If I loved you, I 
could not stand here and speak of it to you 
in this way. I could not tell you you are 
not a man. Everything in me would go 
down before you. You could do with my 
life what you pleased. No one in compari- 
son with you would mean anything to me — 
not even mamma. As long as I was with 
you, I should never wish to sleep ; if you 
were away from me, I should never wish to 


The Mettle of the Pasture 299 

waken. If you were poor, if you were 
in trouble, you would be all the dearer 
to me — if you only loved me, only loved 
me ! ” 

Who is it that can mark down the moment 
when we ceased to be children ? Gazing 
backward in after years, we sometimes at- 
tempt dimly to fix the time. ‘‘ It probably 
occurred on that day,’’ we declare ; it may 
have taken place during that night. It coin- 
cided with that hardship, or with that mastery 
of life.” But a child can suffer and can tri- 
umph as a man or a woman, yet remain a 
child. Like man and woman it can hate, 
envy, malign, cheat, lie, tyrannize ; or bless, 
cheer, defend, drop its pitying tears, pour 
out its heroic spirit. Love alone among 
the passions parts the two eternities of a 
lifetime. The instant it is born, the child 
which was its parent is dead. 

As Marguerite suddenly ceased speaking, 
frightened by the secret import of her own 
words, her skin, which had the satinlike fine- 
ness and sheen of white poppy leaves, be- 
came dyed from brow to breast with a surging 


300 The Mettle of the Pasture 

flame of rose. She turned partly away from 
Barbee, and she waited for him to go. 

" He looked at her a moment with torment 
in his eyes ; then, lifting his hat without a 
word, he turned and walked proudly down 
the street toward his office. 

Marguerite did not send a glance after 
him. What can make us so cruel to those 
who vainly love us as our vain love of some 
one else ? What do we care for their suffer- 
ing ? We see it in their faces, hear it in their 
speech, feel it as the tragedy of their lives. 
But we turn away from them unmoved and 
cry out at the heartlessness of those whom our 
own faces and words and sorrow do not touch. 

She lowered her parasol, and pressing her 
palm against one cheek and then the other, to 
force back the betraying blood, hurried agi- 
tated and elated into the library. A new kind 
of excitement filled her : she had confessed 
her secret, had proved her fidelity to him she 
loved by turning off the playmate of child- 
hood. Who does not know the relief of con- 
fessing to some one who does not understand ? 

The interior of the library was an immense 


> 


The Mettle of the Pasture 301 

rectangular room. Book shelves projected 
from each side toward the middle, forming 
alcoves. Seated in one of these alcoves, you 
could be seen only by persons who should 
chance to pass. The library was never 
crowded and it was nearly empty now. 
Marguerite lingered to speak with the 
librarian, meantime looking carefully around 
the room ; and then moved on toward the 
shelves where she remembered having once 
seen a certain book of which she was now 
thinking. It had not interested her then ; 
she had heard it spoken of since, but it had 
not interested her since. Only to-day some- 
thing new within herself drew her toward it. 

No one was in the alcove she entered. 
After a while she found her book and seated 
herself in a nook of the walls with her face 
turned in the one direction from which she 
could be discovered by any one passing. 
While she read, she wished to watch : might 
he not pass ? 

It was a very old volume, thumbed by 
generations of readers. Pages were gone, 
the halves of pages worn away or tattered. 


^302 The Mettle of the Pasture 

It was printed in an old style of uncextain 
spelling so that the period of its author- 
ship could in this way be but doubtfully lin- 
dicated. Ostensibly it came down from t^he 
ruder, plainer speech of old English timf-s, 
which may have found leisure for such “ A 
Booke of Folly.” 

Marguerite’s eyes settled first on the coisti- 
plete title : Lady Bluefields’ First Principkes 
of Courting for Ye Use of Ye Ladies ; b’lut 
Plainly Set Down for Ye Good of lire 
Beginners.” 

I am not a beginner,” thought Margue- 
rite, yvho had been in love three days ; and she 
began to read : 

“ Now of all artes ye most ancient is ye 
lovely arte of courting. It is ye earliest form 
of ye chase. It is older than hawking or hunt- 
ing ye wilde bore. It is older than ye flint age 
or ye stone age^ being as old as ye bones in ye 
man his body and in ye woman her body. It 
began in ye Garden of Eden and is as old as 
ye old devil himself' 

Marguerite laughed : she thought Lady 
Bluefields delightful. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 303* 

‘‘ Now ye only purpose in all God His world 
of ye arte of courting is to create love where 
love is noty or to make it grow where it has 
begun. But whether ye wish to create love or 
to blow ye little coal into ye big blaze ^ ye princi- 
ples are ye same; for ye bellows that will fan 
nothing into something will easily roast ye spark 
into ye roaring fire ; and ye grander ye fire^ ye 
grander ye arteJ^ 

Marguerite laughed again. Then she 
stopped reading and tested the passage in 
the light of her experience. A bellows and 
— nothing to begin. Then something. Then 
a spark. Then a flame. She returned to the 
book with the conclusion that Lady Bluefields 
was a woman of experience. 

This little booke will not contain any but ye 
first principles : it is enough for ye stingy price 
ye pay, But ye woman who buys ye first princi- 
ples and failsy must then get ye larger work on 
ye Last Principles of Courting^ with ye true ac- 
count of ye mysteries which set ye principles to 
going : it is ye infallible guide to ye irresistible 
love, Te pay more for ye Big Booke ^ and God 
knows it is worth ye price : it is written for yc 


304 The Mettle of the Pasture 

women who are ye difficult cases — ye floating 
derelicts in ye ocean of love^ ye hidden snags ^ 
terror of ye seafaring menl^ 

This did not so much interest Marguerite. 
She skipped two or three pages which seemed 
to go unnecessarily into the subject of dere- 
licts and snags. I am not quite sure as to 
what a derelict is : I do not think I am one ; 
but certainly I am not a snag.’’ 

Now ye only reason for ye lovely arte of 
c our tinge is ye purpose to marry. If ye do 
not expect to marry, positively ye must not 
court : flirting is ye dishonest arte. Courting is 
ye honest arte ; if ye woman knows in ye woman 
her heart that she will not make ye man a good 
wife, let her not try to Cage ye man : let her 
keep ye cat or cage ye canary : that is enough 
for her.'' 

I shall dispose of my canary at once. 
It goes to Miss Harriet Crane.” 

Now of all men there is one ye woman 
must not court : ye married man. Positively 
ye must not court such a man. If he wishes 
to court ye, ye must make resistance to him 
with all ye soul; if you wish to court him, ye 


The Mettle of the Pasture 305 

must resist yourself . If he is a married man and 
happy ^ let him alone. If he is married and 
unhappy^ let him bear his lot and beat his 
wife I" 

Marguerite’s eyes flashed. “ It is well the 
writer did not live in this age/’ she thought. 

Te men to court are three kinds : first ye 
swain ; second ye old bachelor ; third ye wid~ 
ower. Te old bachelor is like ye green chimney 
of ye new house — hard to kindle. But ye 
widower is like ye familiar fireplace. Te must 
court according to ye kind. Te bachelor and 
ye widower are treated in ye big bookeT 

‘‘The swain is left,” said Marguerite. “How 
and when is the swain to be courted ? ” 

“ Now ye beauty of ye swain is that ye can 
court him at all seasons of ye year. Te female 
bird will signal for ye mate only when ye woods 
are green ; but even ye old maid can go to ye 
icy spinnet and drum wildly in ye dead of winter 
with ye aching fingers and ye swain mate will 
sometimes come to her out of ye cold.” 

Marguerite was beginning to think that 
nearly every one treated in Lady Bluefields’ 
book was too advanced in years : it was too 


306 The Mettle of the Pasture 

charitable to the problems of spinsters. 
“ Where do the young come in ? ” she 
asked impatiently. 

Te must not court ye young swain with ye 
food or ye wine. That is for ye old bachelors 
and ye widowers to whom ye food and wine are 
dear^ but ye woman who gives them not dear 
enough, Te woman gives them meat and 
drink and they give ye woman hope : it is ye 
bargain : let each be content with what each 
gets. But if ye swain be bashful and ye know 
that he cannot speak ye word that he has tried 
to speak, a glass of ye wine will sometimes give 
him that missing word. Ye wine passes ye 
word to him and he passes ye word to you : 
and ye keep it 1 When ye man is soaked with 
wine he does not know what he loves nor cares : 
he will hug ye iron post in ye street or ye sack 
of feathers in ye man his bed and talk to it as 
though nothing else were dear to him in all ye 
world. It is not ye love that makes him do 
this ; it is ye wine and ye man his own devilish 
nature. No ; ye must marry with wine, but 
ye must court with water, Te love that will 
not begin with water will not last with wine I' 


The Mettle of the Pasture 307 

This did not go to the heart of the matter. 
Marguerite turned over several pages. 

In ye arte of courting^ it is often ye 
woman her eyes that settle ye man his fate, 
, But if ye woman her eyes are not beautiful^ she 
must not court with them but with other mem- 
bers of ye woman her body, Te greatest use 
of ye ugly eyes is to see but not be seen. If ye 
try to court with ye ugly eyes^ ye scare ye man 
away or make him to feel sick; and ye will 
be sorry, Te eyes must be beautiful and ye 
eyes must have some ‘mystery. They must not 
be like ye windows of ye house in summer when 
ye curtains are taken down and ye shutters are 
taken of. As ye 7nan stands outside he must 
want to see all that is- within.^ but he must not 
be able. What ye man loves ye woman for is 
ye mystery in her ; if ye woman contain no 
mystery-, let her marry if she must; but not 
aspire to court. (This is enough for ye stingy 
price ye pay : if ye had paid more money ^ ye 
would have received more instruction^) ” 

Marguerite thought it very little instruc- 
tion for any money. She felt disappointed 
and provoked. She passed on to “ Clothes.” 


308 The Mettle of the Pasture 

“What can she teach me on that subject?” 
she thought. 

“ When ye court with ye clothes^ ye must not 
lift ye dress above ye ankle boneT 

“Then I know what kind of ankle 
bone she had,” said Marguerite, bitter for 
revenge on Lady Bluefields. 

“ clothes play a greate part in ye arte of 
c our tinge T 

Marguerite turned the leaf ; but she found 
that the other pages on the theme were too 
thumbed and faint to be legible. 

She looked into the subject of “ Hands ” : 
learning where the palms should be turned 
up and when turned down ; the meaning 
of a crooked forefinger, and of full moons 
rising on the horizons of the finger nails ; 
why women with freckled hands should 
court bachelors. Also how the feet, if of 
such and such sizes and configurations, must 
be kept as “jy^ two dead secrets T Similarly 
how dimples must be born and not made — 
with a caution against ye dimple under ye 
nose ” (reference to “ Big Booke ” — well 
worth the money, etc.). 


The Mettle of the Pasture 309 

When she reached the subject of the kiss, 
Marguerite thought guiltily of the library 
steps. 

“TV kiss is ye last and ye greatest act in all ye 
lovely arte of cour tinge. Te eyes^ye hair ^ ye feet^ 
ye dimple, ye whole trunk, are of no account if 
they do not lead up to ye kiss. There are two 
kinds of ye kiss : ye kiss that ye give and ye kiss 
that ye take. Te kiss that ye take is ye one ye 
want. Ye woman often wishes to give ye man 
one hut cannot; and ye man often wishes to take 
one (or more) from ye woman but cannot ; and 
between her not being able to give and his not 
being able to take, there is suffering enough in 
this ill-begotten and ill-sorted world. Ye great- 
est enemy of ye kiss that ye earth has ever known 
is ye sun; ye greatest friend is ye night. 

“TV most cases where ye woman can take 
ye kiss are put down in ye ‘ Big Bookel 

“ When ye man lies sick in ye hospital and 
ye woman bends over him and he is too weak 
to raise his head, she can let her head fall down 
on his ; it is only the law of gravitation. But 
not while she is giving him ye physick. If ye 
woman is riding in ye carriage and ye horses 


310 The Mettle of the Pasture 

run away ; and ye man she loves is standing 
in ye hushes and rushes out and seizes ye horses 
hut is dragged^ when he lies, in ye road in ye 
swoon^ ye woman can send ye driver around 
behind ye carriage and kiss him then — as she 
always does in ye women their novels hut never 
does in ye life. There is one time when any 
woman can freely kiss ye man she loves : in ye 
dreame. It is ye safest way^ and ye best. 
No one knows ; and it does not disappoint as it 
often does disappoint when ye are awake. 

Lastly when ye beautiful swain that ye 
woman loved is dead^ she may go into ye room 
where' he lies white and cold and kiss him 
then : hut she waited too longl* 

Marguerite let the book fall as though an 
arrow had pierced her. At the same time 
she heard the librarian approaching. She 
quickly restored the volume to its place and 
drew out another book. The librarian 
entered the alcove* smiled at Marguerite, 
peeped over her shoulder into the book she 
was reading, searched for another, and took 
it away. When she disappeared. Marguerite 
rose and looked ; Lady Bluefields was gone. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 3 1 1 

She could not banish those heart-breaking 
words : ‘‘ When ye beautiful swain that ye 
woman loved is deadP The longing of the past 
days, the sadness, the languor that was 
ecstasy and pain, swept back over her as she 
sat listening now, hoping for another footstep. 
Would he not come? She did not ask 
to speak with him. If she might only see 
him, only feel him near for a few moments. 

She quitted the library slowly at last, 
trying to escape notice ; and passed up the 
street with an unconscious slight drooping of 
that aerial figure. When she reached her 
yard, the tree-tops within were swaying and 
showing the pale gray under-surfaces of their 
leaves. A storm was coming. She turned 
at the gate, her hat in her hand, and looked 
toward the cloud with red lightnings darting 
from it : a still white figure confronting that 
noonday darkness of the skies. 

Grandmother never loved but once,” 
she said. ‘‘ Mamma never loved but once : 
it is our fate.” 


Ill 


Anna/* said Professor Hardage that 
same morning, coming out of his library into 
the side porch where Miss Anna, sitting in 
a green chair and wearing a pink apron and 
holding a yellow bowl with a blue border, 
was seeding scarlet cherries for a brown roll, 
‘‘see what somebody has sent me'' He 
held up a many-colored bouquet tied with a 
brilliant ribbon ; to the ribbon was pinned 
an old-fashioned card. 

“ Ah, now, that is what comes of your 
being at the ball/* said Miss Anna, delighted 
and brimming with pride. “ Somebody fell 
in love with you. I told you you looked 
handsome that night,** and she beckoned 
impatiently for the bouquet. 

He surrendered it with a dubious look. 
She did not consider the little tumulus of 
Flora, but devoured the name of the builder. 
Her face turned crimson ; and leaning over 

3ii 


The Mettle of the Pasture 313 

to one side, she dropped the bouquet into 
the basket for cherry seed. Then she con- 
tinued her dutiful pastime, her head bent so 
low that he could see nothing but the part 
dividing the soft brown hair of her fine head. 

He sat down and laughed at her: ‘‘I 
knew you’d get me into trouble.” 

It was some moments before she asked 
in a guilty voice : What did you do ? ” 
What did you tell me to do ? ” 

‘‘ I asked you to be kind to Harriet,” she 
murmured mournfully. 

‘‘ You told me to take her out into the 
darkest place I could find and to sit there 
with her and hold her hand.” 

“ I did not tell you to hold her hand. I 
told you to try to hold her hand.” 

“ Well ! I builded better than you knew ; 
give me my flowers.” 

“ What did you do ? ” she asked again in 
a voice that admitted the worst. 

“How do I know? I was thinking of 
something else ! But here comes Harriet,” 
he said, quickly standing up and gazing down 
the street. 


314 T^he Mettle of the Pasture 

Go in/’ said Miss Anna, “ I want to see 
Harriet alone 

“2'^?/^go in. The porch isn’t dark; but 
I’ll stay here with her ! ” 

“ Please.” 

When he had gone, Miss Anna leaned over 
and lifting the bouquet from the sticking cherry 
seed tossed it into the yard — tossed \tfar. 

Harriet came out into the porch looking 
wonderfully fresh. How do you do, 
Anna ? ” she said with an accent of new 
cordiality, established cordiality. 

The accent struck Miss Anna’s ear as the 
voice of the bouquet. She had at once dis- 
covered also that Harriet was beautifully 
dressed — even to the point of wearing her 
best gloves. 

“ Oh, good morning, Harriet,” she re- 
plied, giving the yellow bowl an unnecessary 
shake and speaking quite incidentally as 
though the visit were not of the slightest 
consequence. She did not invite Harriet to 
be seated. Harriet seated herself. 

“Aren’t you well, Anna?” she inquired 
with blank surprise. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 315 

. “ I am always well.’* 

“ Is any one ill, Anna? ” 

“Not to my knowledge.” 

Harriet knew Miss Anna to have the 
sweetest nature of all women. She realized 
that she herself was often a care to her friend. 
A certain impulse inspired her now to give 
assurance that she had not come this morn- 
ing to weigh her down with more troubles. 

“ Do you know, Anna, I never felt so 
well! Marguerite’s ball really brought me 
out. I have turned over a new leaf of des- 
tiny and I am going out more after this. 
What right has a woman to give up life so 
soon ? I shall go out more, and I shall 
read more, and be a different woman, and 
cease worrying you. Aren’t women reading 
history now ? But then they are doing 
everything. Still that is no reason why I 
should not read a little, because my mind is 
really a blank on the subject of the antiq- 
uities. Of course I can get the ancient 
Hebrews out of the Bible ; but I ought to 
know more about the Greeks and Romans. 
Now oughtn’t I ? ” 


316 The Mettle of the Pasture 

‘‘You don’t want to know anything about 
the Greeks and the Romans, Harriet/’ said 
Miss Anna. “ Content yourself with the 
earliest Hebrews. You have gotten along 
very well without the Greeks and the 
Romans — for — a — long — time.” 

Harriet understood at last ; there was no 
mistaking now. She was a very delicate 
instrument and much used to being rudely 
played upon. Her friend’s reception of her 
to-day had been so unaccountable that at 
one moment she had suspected that her 
appearance might be at fault. Harriet had 
known women to turn cold at the sight 
of a new gown ; and it had really become a 
life principle not to dress even as well as 
she could, because she needed the kindness 
that flows out so copiously from new clothes 
to old clothes. But it was embarrass- 
ment that caused her now to say rather 
aimlessly : 

“ I believe I feel overdressed. What 
possessed me ? ” 

“ Don’t overdress again,” enjoined Miss 
Anna in stern confidence. “ Never try to 


The Mettle of the Pasture ^17 

change yourself in any way. I like you bet 
ter as you are — a — great — deal — better.” 

“ Then you shall have me as you like me, 
Anna dear,” replied Harriet, faithfully and 
earnestly, with a faltering voice ; and she 
looked out into the yard with a return of an 
expression very old and very weary. Fortu- 
nately she was short-sighted and was thus 
unable to see her bouquet which made such 
a burning blot on the green grass, with the 
ribbon trailing beside it and the card still 
holding on as though determined to see the 
strange adventure through to the end. 

“ Good-by, Anna,” she said, rising trem- 
blingly, though at the beginning of her visit. 

“ Oh, good-by, Harriet,” replied Miss 
Anna, giving a cheerful shake to the yellow 
bowl. 

As Harriet walked slowly down the street, 
a more courageously dressed woman than she 
had been for years, her chin quivered and she 
shook with sobs heroically choked back. 

Miss Anna went into the library and sat 
down near the door. Her face which had 
been very white was scarlet again : What 


318 The Mettle of the Pasture 

was it you did — tell me quickly. I cannot 
stand it.” 

He came over and taking her cheeks 
between his palms turned her face up and 
looked down into her eyes. But she shut 
them quickly. “ What do you suppose I 
did ? Harriet and I sat for half an hour in 
another room. I don't remember what I 
did ; but it could not have been anything 
very bad : others were all around us.” 

She opened her eyes and pushed him 
away harshly : “ I have wounded Harriet in 
her most sensitive spot ; and then I insulted 
her after I wounded her,” and she went 
upstairs. 

Later he found the bouquet on his library 
table with the card stuck in the top. The 
flowers stayed there freshly watered till the 
petals strewed his table : they were not even 
dusted away. 

As for Harriet herself, the wound of the 
morning must have penetrated till it struck 
some deep flint in her composition ; for she 
came back the next day in high spirits and 
severely underdressed — in what might be 


The Mettle of the Pasture 31Q 

called toilet reduced to its lowest terms, like 
a common fraction. She had restored her- 
self to the footing of an undervalued inter- 
course. At the sight of her Miss Anna 
sprang up, kissed her all over the face, was 
atoningly cordial with her arms, tried in 
every way to say: “See, Harriet, I bare 
my heart ! Behold the dagger of remorse ! ” 

Harriet saw ; and she walked up and took 
the dagger by the handle and twisted it to 
the right and to the left and drove it in 
deeper and was glad. 

“ How do you like this dress, Anna ? ” 
she inquired with the sweetest solicitude. 
“ Ah, there is no one like a friend to bring 
you to your senses ! You were right. I am 
too old to change, too old to dress, too old 
even to read : thank you, Anna, as always.” 

Many a wound of friendship heals, but 
the wounder and the wounded are never the 
same to each other afterward. So that 
the two comrades were ill at ease and wel- 
comed a diversion in the form of a visitor. 
It happened to be the day of the week when 
Miss Anna received her supply of dairy 


320 The Mettle of the Pasture 

products from the farm of Ambrose Webb. 
He came round to the side entrance now 
with two shining tin buckets and two lustre- 
less eyes. 

The old maids stood on the edge of the 
porch with their arms wrapped around each 
other, and talked to him with nervous gayety. 
He looked up with a face of dumb yearn- 
ing at one and then at the other, almost 
impartially. 

‘^Aren’t you well, Mr. Webb ? ” inquired 
Miss Anna, bending over toward him with a 
healing smile. 

“ Certainly I am well,” he replied resent- 
fully. “ There is nothing the matter with 
me. I am a sound man.” 

But you were certainly groaning,” in- 
sisted Miss Anna, “ for I heard you ; and 
you must have been groaning about some- 
thing T 

He dropped his eyes, palpably crestfallen, 
and scraped the bricks with one foot. 

Harriet nudged Miss Anna not to press 
the point and threw herself gallantly into 
the breach of silence. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 321 

“ I am coming out to see you sometime, 
Mr. Webb,'' she said threateningly; “I 
want to find out whether you are taking 
good care of my calf. Is she growing ? " 

“ Calves always grow till they stop," said 
Ambrose, axiomatically. 

“ How high is she ?" 

He held his hand up over an imaginary 
back. 

“ Why, that is high I When she stops 
growing, Anna, I am going to sell her, sell 
her by the pound. She is my beef trust. 
Now don't forget, Mr. Webb, that I am 
coming out some day." 

I'll be there," he said, and he gave her 
a peculiar look. 

‘‘You know, Anna," said Harriet, when 
they were alone again, “ that his wife treats 
him shamefully. I have heard mother talk- 
ing about it. She says his wife is the kind 
of woman that fills a house as straw fills a 
barn : you can see it through every crack. 
That accounts for his heavy expression, and 
for his dull eyes, and for the groaning. 
They say that most of the time he sits on 


322 The Mettle of the Pasture 

the fences when it is clear, and goes into the 
stable when it rains/' 

Why, ril have to be kinder to him than 
ever,” said Miss Anna. “ But how do you 
happen to have a calf, Harriet } ” she added, 
struck by the practical fact. 

“It was the gift of my darling mother, 
my dear, the only present she has made me 
that I can remember. It was an orphan, 
and you wouldn't have it in your asylum, 
and my mother was in a peculiar mood, I 
suppose. She amused herself with the idea 
of making me such a present. But Anna, 
watch that calf, and see if thereby does not 
hang a tale. I am sure, in some mysterious 
way, my destiny is bound up with it. Calves 
do have destinies, don't they, Anna } '' 

“Oh, don't ask me^ Harriet! Inquire 
of their Creator ; or try the market-house.'' 

It was at the end of this visit that Harriet 
as usual imparted to Miss Anna the freshest 
information regarding affairs at home : that 
Isabel had gone to spend the summer with 
friends at the seashore, and was to linger 
with other friends in the mountains during 


The Mettle of the Pasture 323 

autumn ; that her mother had changed her 
own plans, and was to keep the house open, 
and had written for the Fieldings — Vic- 
tor’s mother and brothers and sisters — to 
come and help fill the house ; that every- 
thing was to be very gay. 

‘‘ I cannot fathom what is under it all,” said 
Harriet, with her hand on the side gate at 
leaving. But I know that mother and Isabel 
have quarrelled. I believe mother has trans- 
ferred her affections — and perhaps her prop- 
erty. She has rewritten her will since Isabel 
went away. What have I to do, Anna, but 
interest myself in other people’s affairs ? I 
have none of my own. And she never calls 
Isabel’s name, but pets Victor from morning 
till night. And her expression sometimes ! 
I tell you, Anna, that when I see it, if I were a 
bird and could fly, gunshot could not catch me. 
I see a summer before me ! If there is ever a 
chance of my doing anything^ don’t be shocked 
if I do it;” and in Harriet’s eyes there were 
two mysterious sparks of hope — two little 
rising suns. 

‘‘ What did she mean ? ” pondered Miss Anna. 


IV 


‘^Barbee/’ said Judge Morris one morn- 
ing a fortnight later, what has become of 
Marguerite ? One night not long ago you 
complained of her as an obstacle in the 
path of your career : does she still annoy 
you with her attentions? You could sue 
out a writ of habeas corpus in your own 
behalf if she persists. Td take the case. 
I believe you asked me to mark your de- 
meanor on the evening of that party. I 
tried to mark it ; but I did not discover a 
great deal of demeanor to mark.'’ 

The two were sitting in the front office. 
The Judge, with nothing to do, was facing 
the street, his snow-white cambric handker- 
chief thrown across one knee, his hands 
grasping the arms of his chair, the news- 
paper behind his heels, his straw hat and 
cane on the floor at his side, and beside 
them the bulldog — his nose thrust against 
the hat. 

324 


The Mettle of the Pasture 325 

Barbee was leaning over his desk with his 
fingers plunged in his hair and his eyes 
fixed on the law book before him — un- 
opened. He turned and remarked with 
dry candor : 

‘‘ Marguerite has dropped me.” 

If she has, it’s a blessed thing.” 

There was more depth to her than I 
thought.” 

“ There always is. Wait until you get 
older.” 

‘‘ I shall have to work and climb to win 
her.” 

You might look up meantime the twen- 
tieth verse of the twenty-ninth chapter of 
Genesis.” 

Barbee rose and took down a Bible from 
among the law books : it had been one of 
the Judge’s authorities, a great stand-by for 
reference and eloquence in his old days of 
pleading. He sat down and read the verse 
and laid the volume aside with the mere 
comment : “ All this time I have been 
thinking her too much of a child ; I find 
that she has been thinking the same of me.” 


326 The Mettle of the Pasture 

“ Then she has been a sound thinker.” 

The result is she has wandered away 
after some one else. I know the man ; and 
I know that he is after some one else. Why 
do people desire the impossible person ? If 
I had been a Greek sculptor and had been 
commissioned to design as my masterwork 
the world's Frieze of Love, it should have 
been one long array of marble shapes, each 
in pursuit of some one fleeing. But some 
day Marguerite will be found sitting pensive 
on a stone — pursuing no longer ; and when 
I appear upon the scene, having overtaken 
her at last, she will sigh, but she will give 
me her hand and go with me: and Til have 
to stand it. That is the worst of it. I 
shall have to stand it — that she preferred 
the other man.” 

The Judge did not care to hear Barbee on 
American themes with Greek imagery. He 
yawned and struggled to his feet with diffi- 
culty. ril take a stroll,” he said ; “ it is 
all I can take.” 

Barbee sprang forward and picked up for 
him his hat and cane. The dog, by what 


The Mettle of the Pasture 327 

seemed the slow action of a mental jack- 
screw, elevated his cylinder to the tops of 
his legs ; and presently the two stiff old 
bodies turned the corner of the street, one 
slanting, one prone : one dotting the bricks 
with his three legs, the other with his four. 

Formerly the man and the brute had gone 
each his own way, meeting only at meal 
time and at irregular hours of the night in 
the Judge's chambers. The Judge had his 
stories regarding the origin of their intimacy. 
He varied these somewhat according to the 
sensibilities of the persons to whom they 
were related — and there were not many 
habitues of the sidewalks who did not hear 
them sooner or later. No one could dis- 
entangle fact and fiction and affection in 
them. 

“ Some years ago," he said one day to 
Professor Hardage, I was a good deal 
gayer than I am now and so was he. We 
cemented a friendship in a certain way, no 
matter what : that is a story Tm not going 
to tell. And he came to live With me on 
that footing of friendship. Of course he 


328 The Mettle of the Pastwx 

was greatly interested in the life of his own 
species at that time ; he loved part of it, he 
hated part ; but he was no friend to either. 
By and by he grew older. Age removed 
a good deal of his vanity, and I suppose it 
forced him to part with some portion of his 
self-esteem. But I was growing older my- 
self and no doubt getting physically a little 
helpless. I suppose I made senile noises 
when I dressed and undressed, expressive 
of my decorative labors. This may have 
been the reason ; possibly not ; but at any 
rate about this time he conceived it his 
duty to give up his friendship as an equal 
and to enter my employ as a servant. He 
became my valet — without wages — and I 
changed his name to ^ Brown.' 

“ Of course you don't think this true ; 
well, then, don't think it true. But you 
have never seen him of winter mornings 
get up before I do and try to keep me out 
of the bath-tub. He'll station himself at the 
bath-room door ; and as I approach he will 
look at me with an air of saying : ‘ Now don't 
climb into that cold water ! Stand on the 


The Mettle of the Pasture 329 

edge of it and lap it if you wish ! But don’t 
get into it. Drink it, man, don’t wallow in 
it.’ He waits until I finish, and then he 
speaks his mind plainly again: ‘Now see 
how wet you are ! And to-morrow you 
will do the same thing.’ And he will stalk 
away, suspicious of the grade of my intelli- 
gence. 

“ He helps me to dress and undress. 
You’d know this if you studied his face 
when I struggle to brush the dust off of 
my back and shoulders : the mortification, 
the sense of injustice done him, in his hav- 
ing been made a quadruped. When I stoop 
over to take off my shoes, if I do it without 
any noise and he lies anywhere near, very 
we li ; but if I am noisy about it, he always 
comes and takes a seat before me and assists. 
Then he makes his same speech : ‘ What a 
shame that you should have to do this for 
yourself, when I am here to do it for you, 
but have no hands.’ 

“ You know his portrait in my sitting 
room. When it was brought home and he 
discovered it on the wall, he looked at it 


330 The Mettle of the Pasture 

from different angles, and then came across 
to me with a wound and a grievance : ‘ Why 
have you put that thing there ? How can 
you, who have me^ tolerate such a looking 
object as that? See the meanness in his 
face ! See how used up he is and how 
sick of life ! See what a history is written 
all over him — his crimes and disgraces ! 
And you can care for him when you have me^ 
your Brown/ After I am dead, I expect 
him to publish a memorial volume entitled 
‘ Reminiscences of the late Judge Ravenel 
Morris. By his former Friend, afterward 
his Valet, Taurus-CanisP' 

The long drowsing days of summer had 
come. Business was almost suspended ; 
heat made energy impossible. Court was 
not in session, farmers were busy with crops. 
From early morning to late afternoon the 
streets were well-nigh deserted. 

Ravenel Morris found life more active for 
him during this idlest season of his native 
town. Having no business to prefer, people 
were left more at leisure to talk with him ; 
more acquaintances sat fanning on their door- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 331 

steps and bade him good night as he passed 
homeward. There were festivals in the 
park ; and he could rest on one of the 
benches and listen to the band playing 
tunes. He had the common human heart 
in its love of tunes. When tunes stopped, 
music stopped for him. If anything were 
played in which there was no traceable 
melody, when the instruments encountered 
a tumult of chords and dissonances, he would 
exclaim though with regretful toleration : 
‘‘ What are they trying to do now ? What 
is it all about ? Why can’t music be simple 
and sweet ? Do noise and confusion make 
it better or greater ? ” 

One night Barbee had him serenaded. He 
gave the musicians instruction as to the tunes, 
how they were to be played, in what succes- 
sion, at what hour of the night. The melo- 
dists grouped themselves in the middle of the 
street, and the Judge came out on a little 
veranda under one of his doors and stood 
there, a great silver-haired figure, looking 
down. The moonlight shone upon him. 
He remained for a while motionless, wrapped 


332 The Mettle of the Pasture 

loosely in what looked like a white toga. 
Then with a slight gesture of the hand 
full of mournful dignity he withdrew. 

It was during these days that Barbee, 
who always watched over him with a most 
reverent worship and affection, made a dis- 
covery. The Judge was breaking ; that 
brave life was beginning to sink and totter 
toward its fall and dissolution. There were 
moments when the cheerfulness, which had 
never failed him in the midst of trial, failed 
him now when there was none ; when the 
ancient springs of strength ceased to run 
and he was discovered to be feeble. Some- 
times he no longer read his morning news- 
paper ; he would sit for long periods in the 
front door of his office, looking out into the 
street and caring not who passed, not even 
returning salutations : what was the use of 
saluting the human race impartially ? Or 
going into the rear office, he would reread 
pages and chapters of what at different times 
in his life had been his favorite books: 
‘‘ Rabelais ” and ‘‘ The Decameron when 
he was young; “Don Quixote’’ later, and 


The Mettle of the Pasture 333 

‘‘Faust”; “Clarissa” and “Tom Jones” 
now and then ; and Shakespeare always ; and 
those poems of Burns that tell sad truths ; 
and the account of the man in Thackeray 
who went through so much that was large 
and at the end of life was brought down to 
so much that was low. He seemed more 
and more to feel the need of grasping through 
books the hand of erring humanity. And 
from day to day his conversations with Barbee 
began to take more the form of counsels about 
life and duty, about the ideals and mistakes 
and virtues and weaknesses in men. He had 
a good deal to say about the ethics of charac- 
ter in the court room and in the street. 

One afternoon Barbee very thoughtfully 
asked him a question: “Uncle, I have 
wanted to know why you always defended 
and never prosecuted. The State is sup- 
posed to stand for justice, and the State is 
the accuser ; in always defending the accused 
and so in working against the State, have 
you not always worked against justice ? ” 

The Judge sat with his face turned away 
and spoke as he sat — very gravely and 


334 Mettle of the Pasture 

V 

quietly : “ I always defended because the 
State can punish only the accused, and 
the accused is never the only criminal. In 
every crime there are three criminals. The 
first criminal is the Origin of Evil. I don’t 
know what the Origin of Evil is, or who he 
is ; but if I could have dragged the Origin 
of Evil into the court room, I should have 
been glad to try to have it hanged, or have 
him hanged. I should have liked to argue 
the greatest of all possible criminal cases : 
the case of the Common People vs, the 
Devil — so nominated. The second crimi- 
nal is all that coworked with the accused 
as involved in his nature, in his temptation, 
and in his act. If I could have arraigned all 
the other men and women who have been 
forerunners or copartners of the accused 
as furthering influences in the line of his 
offence, I should gladly have prosecuted 
them for their share of the guilt. But most 
of the living who are accessory can no more 
be discovered and summoned than can the 
dead who also were accessory. You have 
left the third criminal ; and the State is 


The Mettle of the Pasture 335 

forced to single him out and let the full 
punishment fall upon him alone. Thus it 
does not punish the guilty — it punishes 
the last of the guilty. It does not even 
punish him for his share of the guilt: it 
can never know what that share is. This is 
merely a feeling of mine, I do not uphold it. 
Of course I often declined to defend also.*’ 

They returned to this subject another 
afternoon as the two sat together a few days 
later : 

“ There was sometimes another reason 
why I felt unwilling to prosecute : I refer 
to cases in which I might be taking advan- 
tage of the inability of a fellow-creature to 
establish his own innocence. I want you 
to remember this — nothing that I have 
ever said to you is of more importance : a 
good many years ago I was in Paris. One 
afternoon I was walking through the most 
famous streets in the company of a French 
scholar and journalist, a deep student of the 
genius of French civilization. As we passed 
along, he pointed out various buildings with 
reference to the history that had been made 


336 The Mettle of the Pasture 

and unmade within them. At one point he 
stopped and pointed to a certain structure 
with a high wall in front of it and to a hole 
in that wall. ‘ Do you know what that is ? ' 
he asked. He told me. Any person can 
drop a letter into that box, containing any 
kind of accusation against any other person ; 
it is received by the authorities and it be- 
comes their duty to act upon its contents. 
Do you know what that means ? Can you 
for a moment realize what is involved ? A 
man’s enemy, even his so-called religious 
enemy, any assassin, any slanderer, any liar, 
even the mercenary who agrees to hire out 
his honor itself for the wages of a slave, 
can deposit an anonymous accusation against 
any one whom he hates or wishes to ruin ; 
and it becomes the duty of the authorities 
to respect his communication as much as 
though it came before a court of highest 
equity. An innocent man may thus become 
an object of suspicion, may be watched, fol- 
lowed, arrested and thrown into prison, dis- 
graced, ruined in his business, ruined in his 
family ; and if in the end he is released, he 


The Mettle of the Pasture 337 

is never even told what he has been charged 
with, has no power of facing his accuser, of 
bringing him to justice, of recovering dam- 
ages from the State. While he himself is 
kept in close confinement, his enemy may 
manufacture evidence which he alone would 
be able to disprove ; and the chance is never 
given him to disprove it.” 

The Judge turned and looked at Barbee 
in simple silence. 

Barbee sprang to his feet : “It is a 
damned shame ! ” he cried. “ Damn the 
French ! damn such a civilization.” 

“Why damn the French code? In our 
own country the same thing goes on, not as 
part of our system of jurisprudence, but as 
part of our system of — well, wedl say — 
morals. In this country any man’s secret 
personal enemy, his so-called religious en- 
emy for instance, may fabricate any accusa- 
tion against him. He does not drop it into 
the dark crevice of a dead wall, but into the 
blacker hole of a living ear. A perfectly 
innocent man by such anonymous or un- 
traceable slander can be as grossly injured 


338 The Mettle of the Pasture 

in reputation, in business, in his family, out 
of a prison in this country as in a prison in 
France. Slander may circulate about him 
and he will never even know what it is, 
never be confronted by his accuser, never 
have power of redress. 

“ Now what I wish you to remember is 
this : that in the very nature of the case a 
man is often unable to prove his innocence. 
All over the world useful careers come to 
nothing and lives are wrecked, because men 
may be ignorantly or malignantly accused of 
things of which they cannot stand up and 
prove that they are innocent. Never forget 
that it is impossible for a man finally to de- 
monstrate his possession of a single great 
virtue. A man cannot so prove his bravery. 
He cannot so prove his honesty or his be- 
nevolence or his sobriety or his chastity, or 
anything else. As to courage, all that he 
can prove is that in a given case or in all 
tested cases he was not a coward. As to 
honesty, all that he can prove is that in any 
alleged instance he was not a thief. A man 
cannot even directly prove his health, mental 


The Mettle of the Pasture 339 

or physical : all that he can prove is that he 
shows no unmistakable evidences of disease. 
But an enemy may secretly circulate the 
charge that these evidences exist ; and all the 
evidences to the contrary that the man him- 
self may furnish will never disperse that im- 
pression. It is so for every great virtue. 
H is final possession of a single virtue can be 
proved by no man. 

This was another reason why I was 
sometimes unwilling to prosecute a fellow- 
creature ; it might be a case in which he alone 
would actually know whether he were inno- 
cent ; but his simple word would not be 
taken, and his simple word would be the only 
proof that he could give. I ask you, as you 
care for my memory, never to take advan- 
tage of the truth that the man before you, 
as the accused, may in the nature of things 
be unable to prove his innocence. Some day 
you are going to be a judge. Remember 
you are always a judge ; and remember that 
a greater Judge than you will ever be gave 
you the rule : ‘Judge as you would be 
judged.' The great root of the matter is 


340 The Mettle of the Pasture 

this : that all human conduct is judged ; but 
a very small part of human conduct is ever 
brought to trial.” 

He had many visitors at his office during 
these idle summer days. He belonged to a 
generation of men who loved conversation — 
when they conversed. All the lawyers 
dropped in. The report of his failing 
strength brought these and many others. 

He saw a great deal of Professor Hardage. 
One morning as the two met, he said with 
more feeling than he usually allowed himself 
to show ; “ Hardage, I am a lonesome old 
man ; don’t you want me to come and see 
you every Sunday evening ? I always try to 
get home by ten o’clock, so that you couldn’t 
get tired of me ; and as I never fall asleep 
before that time, you wouldn’t have to put me 
to bed. I want to hear you talk, Hardage. 
My time is limited ; and you have no right to 
shut out from me so much that you know — 
your learning, your wisdom, yourself. And 
I know a few things that I have picked up 
in a lifetime. Surely we ought to have 
something to say to each other.” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 341 

But when he came, Professor Hardage was 
glad to let him find relief in his monologues 
— fragments of self-revelation. This last 
phase of their friendship had this added 
significance: that the Judge no longer spent 
his Sunday evenings with Mrs. Conyers. 
The last social link binding him to woman- 
kind had been broken. It was a final loosen- 
ing and he felt it, felt the desolation in which 
it left him. His cup of life had indeed been 
drained, and he turned away from the dregs. 

One afternoon Professor Hardage found 
him sitting with his familiar Shakespeare on 
his knees. As he looked up, he stretched 
out his hand in eager welcome and said : 
‘‘ Listen once more ; ” and he read the great 
kindling speech of King Henry to his Eng- 
lish yeomen on the eve of battle. 

He laid the book aside. 

“ Of course you have noticed how Shake- 
speare likes this word ^ mettle,’ how he 
likes the thing. The word can be seen from 
afar over the vast territory of his plays like 
the same battle-flag set up in different parts 
of a field. It is conspicuous in the heroic 


342 The Mettle of the Pasture 

English plays, and in the Roman and in the 
Greek ; it waves alike over comedy and 
tragedy as a rallying signal to human nature. 
I imagine I can see his face as he writes of 
the mettle of children — the mettle of a boy 
— the quick mettle of a schoolboy — a lad 
of mettle — the mettle of a gentleman — the 
mettle of the sex — the mettle of a woman. 
Lady Macbeth — the mettle of a king — the 
mettle of a speech — even the mettle of a 
rascal — mettle in death. I love to think of 
him, a man who had known trouble, writing 
the words : ^ The insuppressive mettle of our 
spirits.’ 

But this particular phrase — the mettle 
of the pasture — belongs rather to our cen- 
tury than to his, more to Darwin than to the 
theatre of that time. What most men are 
thinking of now, if they think at all, is of 
our earth, a small grass-grown planet hung 
in space. And, unaccountably making his 
appearance on it, is man, a pasturing animal, 
deriving his mettle from his pasture. The 
old question comes newly up to us : Is 
anything ever added to him ? Is anything 


The Mettle of the Pasture 343 

ever lost to him ? Evolution — is it any- 
thing more than change? Civilizations — 
are they anything but different arrangements 
of the elements of man’s nature with refer- 
ence to the preeminence of some elements 
and the subsidence of others? 

‘‘ Suppose you take the great passions : 
what new one has been added, what old one 
has been lost? Take all the passions you 
find in Greek literature, in the Roman. 
Have you not seen them reappear in 
American life in your own generation ? I 
believe I have met them in my office. You 
may think I have not seen Paris and Helen, 
but I have. And I have seen Orestes and 
Agamemnon and Clytemnestra and CEdi- 
pus. Do you suppose I have not met Tar- 
quin and Virginia and Lucretia and Shylock 
— to come down to nearer times — and seen 
Lear and studied Macbeth in the flesh ? I 
knew Juliet once, and behind locked doors I 
have talked with Romeo. They are all here 
in any American commonwealth at the close 
of our century : the great tragedies are num- 
bered — the oldest are the newest. So that 


344 Mettle of the Pasture 

sometimes I fix my eyes only on the old. 1 
see merely the planet with its middle green 
belt of pasture and its poles of snow and ice : 
and wandering over that green belt for a 
little while man the pasturing animal — with 
the mystery of his ever being there and the 
mystery of his dust — with nothing ever 
added to him, nothing ever lost out of him 
— his only power being but the power to 
vary the uses of his powers. 

‘‘ Then there is the other side, the side of 
the new. I like to think of the marvels that 
the pasturing animal has accomplished in 
our own country. He has had new thoughts, 
he has done things never seen elsewhere or 
before. But after all the question remains, 
what is our characteristic mettle ? What is 
the mettle of the American ? He has had 
new ideas ; but has he developed a new 
virtue or carried any old virtue forward to 
characteristic development? Has he added 
to the civilizations of Europe the spectacle 
of a single virtue transcendently exercised ? 
We are not braver than other brave people, 
we are not more polite, we are not more 


The Mettle of the Pasture 345 

honest or more truthful or more sincere or 
kind. I wish to God that some virtue, say 
the virtue of truthfulness, could be known 
throughout the world as the unfailing mark 
of the American — the mettle of his pasture. 
Not to lie in business, not to lie in love, 
not to lie in religion — to be honest with 
one’s fellow-men, with women, with God — 
suppose the rest of mankind would agree 
that this virtue constituted the characteristic 
of the American ! That would be fame for 
ages. 

“ I believe that we shall sometime become 
celebrated for preeminence in some virtue. 
Why, I have known young fellows in my 
office that I have believed unmatched for 
some fine trait or noble quality. You have 
met them in your classes.” 

He broke off abruptly and remained silent 
for a while. 

“Have you seen Rowan lately?” he 
asked, with frank uneasiness : and receiving 
the reply which he dreaded, he soon after- 
ward arose and passed brokenly down the 
street. 


34 ^ The Mettle of the Pasture 

For some weeks now he had been missing 
Rowan ; and this was the second cause of 
his restlessness and increasing loneliness. 
The failure of Rowan’s love affair was a blow 
to him: it had so linked him to the life 
of the young — was the last link. And since 
then he had looked for Rowan in vain ; he 
had waited for him of mornings at his office, 
had searched for him on the streets, scanning 
all young men on horseback or in buggies ; 
had tried to find him in the library, at the 
livery stable, at the bank where he was 
a depositor and director. There was no 
ground for actual uneasiness concerning 
Rowan’s health, for Rowan’s neighbors as- 
sured him in response to his inquiries that 
he was well and at work on the farm. 

If he is in trouble, why does he not 
come and tell me ? Am 1 not worth coming 
to see? Has he not yet understood what 
he is to me ? But how can he know, how can 
the young ever know how the old love them ? 
And the old are too proud to tell.” He 
wrote letters and tore them up. 

As we stand on the rear platform of a train 


The Mettle of the Pasture 347 

and see the mountains away from which we 
are rushing rise and impend as if to over-* 
whelm us, so in moving farther from his 
past very rapidly now, it seemed to follow 
him as a landscape growing always nearer 
and clearer. His mind dwelt more on the 
years when hatred had so ruined him, cost- 
ing him the only woman he had ever asked 
to be his wife, costing him a fuller life, 
greater honors, children to leave behind. 

He was sitting alone in his rear office the 
middle of one afternoon, alone among his 
books. He had outspread before him several 
that are full of youth. Barbee was away, the 
street was very quiet. No one dropped in — 
perhaps all were tired of hearing him talk. It 
was not yet the hour for Professor Hardage 
to walk in. A watering-cart creaked slowly 
past the door and the gush of the drops of 
water sounded like a shower and the smell 
of the dust was strong. Far away in some 
direction were heard the cries of school chil- 
dren at play in the street. A bell was toll- 
ing ; a green fly, entering through the rear 
door, sang loud on the dusty window-panes 


348 The Mettle of the Pasture 

and then flew out and alighted on a plant 
of nightshade springing up rank at the door- 
step. 

He was not reading and his thoughts were 
the same old thoughts. At length on the 
quiet air, coming nearer, were heard the easy 
roll of wheels and the slow measured step of 
carriage horses. The sound caught his ear 
and he listened with quick eagerness. Then 
he rose trembling and waited. The carriage 
had stopped at the door; a moment later 
there was a soft low knock on the lintel and 
Mrs. Meredith entered. He met her but 
she said: “May I go in there?” and entered 
the private office. 

She brought with her such grace and 
sweetness of full womanly years that as she 
seated herself opposite him and lifted her 
veil away from the purity of her face, it was 
like the revelation of a shrine and the office 
became as a place of worship. She lifted 
the veil from the dignity and seclusion of 
her life. She did not speak at once but 
looked about her. Many years had passed 
since she had entered that office, for it had 


The Mettle of the Pasture 349 

long ago seemed best to each of them that 
,they should never meet. He had gone 
back to his seat at the desk with the opened 
books lying about him as though he had 
been searching one after another for the lost 
fountain of youth. He sat there looking 
at her, his white hair falling over his leonine 
head and neck, over his clear mournful eyes. 
The sweetness of his face, the kindness of it, 
the shy, embarrassed, almost guilty look on 
it from the old pain of being misunderstood 
— the terrible pathos of it all, she saw these ; 
but whatever her emotions, she was not a 
woman to betray them at such a moment, 
in such a place. 

“ I do not come on business,” she said. 
‘‘ All the business seems to have been at- 
tended to ; life seems very easy, too easy : 
I have so little to do. But I am here, 
Ravenel, and I suppose I must try to say 
what brought me.” 

She waited for some time, unable to 
speak. 

Ravenel,” she said at length, “ I cannot 
go on any longer without telling you that 


350 The Mettle of the Pasture 

my great sorrow in life has been the wrong 
I did you.” 

He closed his eyes quickly and stretched 
out his hand against her, as though to shut 
out the vision of things that rose before him 
— as though to stop words that would un- 
man him. 

“ But I was a young girl ! And what 
does a young girl understand about her 
duty in things like that ? I know it changed 
your whole life ; you will never know what 
it has meant in mine.” 

Caroline,” he said, and he looked at her 
with brimming eyes, ‘‘ if you had married 
me, Fd have been a great man. I was not 
great enough to be great without you. The 
single road led the wrong way — to the 
wrong things ! ” 

‘‘ I know,” she said, “ I know it all. And 
I know that tears do not efface mistakes, 
and that our prayers do not atone for our 
wrongs.” 

She suddenly dropped her veil and rose. 

Do not come out to help me,” she said 
as he struggled up also. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 351 

He did not wish to go, and he held out 
his hand and she folded her soft pure hands 
about it ; then her large noble figure moved 
to the side of his and through her veil — her 
love and sorrow hidden from him — she 
lifted her face and kissed him. 


V 


And during these days when Judge 
Morris was speaking his mind about old 
tragedies that never change, and new virtues 
— about scandal and guilt and innocence — 
it was during these days that the scandal 
started and spread and did its work on the 
boy he loved — and no one had told him. 

The summer was drawing to an end. 
During the last days of it Kate wrote to 
Isabel : 

“ I could not have believed, dearest friend, 
that so long a time would pass without my 
writing. Since you went away it has been 
eternity. And many things have occurred 
which no one foresaw or imagined. I can- 
not tell you how often I have resisted the 
impulse to write. Perhaps I should resist 
now ; but there are some matters which you 
ought to understand ; and I do not believe 
that any one else has told you or will tell 
you. If I, your closest friend, have shrunk, 
352 


The Mettle of the Pasture 353 

how could any one else be expected to per- 
form the duty ? 

A week or two after you left I under- 
stood why you went away mysteriously, and 
why during that last visit to me you were 
unlike yourself. I did not know then that 
your gayety was assumed, and that you were 
broken-hearted beneath your brave dis- 
guises. But I remember your saying that 
some day I should know. The whole truth 
has come out as to why you broke your en- 
gagement with Rowan, and why you left 
home. You can form no idea what a sensa- 
tion the news produced. For a while noth- 
ing else was talked of, and I am glad for 
your sake that you were not here. 

I say the truth came out ; but even now 
the town is full of different stories, and dif- 
ferent people believe different things. But 
every friend of yours feels perfectly sure that 
Rowan was unworthy of you, and that you 
did right in discarding him. It is safe to 
say that he has few friends left among yours. 
He seldom comes to town, and I hear that 
he works on the farm like a common hand 

2A 


354 Mettle of the Pasture 

as he should. One day not long after you 
left I met him on the street. He was com- 
ing straight up to speak to me as usual. 
But I had the pleasure of staring him in the 
eyes and of walking deliberately past him 
as though he were a stranger — except that 
I gave him one explaining look. I shall 
never speak to him. 

His mother has the greatest sympathy 
of every one. They say that no one has told 
her the truth : how could any one tell her 
such things about her own son ? Of course 
she must know that you dropped him and 
that we have all dropped him. They say 
that she is greatly saddened and that her 
health seems to be giving way. 

I do not know whether you have heard 
the other sensation regarding the Meredith 
family. You refused Rowan ; and now Dent 
is going to marry a common girl in the 
neighborhood. Of course Dent Meredith 
was always noted for being a quiet little 
bookworm, near-sighted, and without any 
knowledge of girls. So it doesn’t seem very 
unnatural for him to have collected the first 


The Mettle of the Pasture 355 

specimen that he came across as he walked 
about over the country. This marriage which 
is to take place in the autumn is the second 
shock to his mother. 

“You will want to hear of other people. 
And this reminds me that a few of your 
friends have turned against you and insist 
that these stories about Rowan are false, and 
even accuse you of starting them. This 
brings me to Marguerite. 

“ Soon after her ball she had typhoid 
fever. In her delirium of whom do you 
suppose she incessantly and pitifully talked ^ 
Every one had supposed that she and Barbee 
were sweethearts — and had been for years. 
But Barbee’s name was never on her lips. 
It was all Rowan, Rowan, Rowan. Poor 
child, she chided him for being so cold to 
her ; and she talked to him about the river 
of life and about his starting on the long 
voyage from the house of his fathers ; and 
begged to be taken with him, and said that 
in their family the women never loved but 
once. When she grew convalescent, there 
was a consultation of the grandmother and 


356 The Mettle of the Pasture 

the mother and the doctors : one passion 
now seemed to constitute all that was left 
of Marguerite’s life ; and that was like a 
flame burning her strength away. 

“ They did as the doctor said had to be 
done. Mrs. Meredith had been very kind 
during her illness, had often been to the 
house. They kept from her of course all 
knowledge of what Marguerite had disclosed 
in her delirium. So when Marguerite by 
imperceptible degrees grew stronger, Mrs. 
Meredith begged that she might be moved 
out to the country for the change and the 
coolness and the quiet ; and the doctors 
availed themselves of this plan as a solution 
of their difliculty — to lessen Marguerite’s 
consuming desire by gratifying it. So she 
and her mother went out to the Merediths’. 
The change proved beneficial. I have not 
been driving myself, although the summer 
has been so long and hot ; and during the 
afternoons I have so longed to see the cool 
green lanes with the sun setting over the 
fields. But of course people drive a great 
deal and they often meet Mrs. Meredith 


The Mettle of the Pasture 357 

with Marguerite in the carriage beside her. 
At first it was Marguerite’s mother and Mar- 
guerite. Then it was Mrs. Meredith and 
Marguerite ; and now it is Rowan and Mar- 
guerite. They drive alone and she sits with 
her face turned toward him — in open idol- 
atry. She is to stay out there until she is 
quite well. How curiously things work 
around ! If he ever proposes, scandal will 
make no difference to Marguerite. 

“ How my letter wanders ! But so do 
my thoughts wander. If you only knew, 
while I write these things, how I am really 
thinking of other things. But I must go 
on in my round-about way. What I started 
out to say was that when the scandals, I 
mean the truth, spread over the town about 
Rowan, the three Marguerites stood by him. 
You could never have believed that the child 
had such fire and strength and devotion in 
her nature. I called on them one day and 
was coldly treated simply because I am your 
closest friend. Marguerite pointedly ex- 
pressed her opinion of a woman who deserts 
a man because he has his faults. Think of 


358 The Mettle of the Pasture 

this child’s sitting in moral condemnation 
upon you ! 

The Hardages also — of course you have 
no stancher friends than they are — have 
stood up stubbornly for Rowan. Professor 
Hardage became very active in trying to bring 
the truth out of what he believes to be gossip 
and misunderstanding. And Miss Anna has 
also remained loyal to him, and in her sunny, 
common-sense way flouts the idea of there 
being any truth in these reports. 

‘‘ I must not forget to tell you that Judge 
Morris now spends his Sunday evenings 
with Professor Hardage. No one has told 
him; they have spared him. Of course 
every one knows that he was once engaged 
to Rowan’s mother and that scandal broke 
the engagement and separated them for life. 
Only in his case it was long afterward found 
out that the tales were not true. 

“ I have forgotten Barbee. He and Mar- 
guerite had quarrelled before her illness — no 
one knows why, unless she was already under 
the influence of her fatal infatuation for Rowan. 
Barbee has gone to work. A few weeks ago 


The Mettle of the Pasture 359 

he won his first serious case in court and at- 
tracted attention. They say his speech was 
so full of dignity and unnecessary rage that 
some one declared he was simply trying to 
recover his self-esteem for Marguerite's haw- 
ing called him trivial and not yet altogether 
grown up. 

Of course you must have had letters of 
your own, telling you of the arrival of the 
Fieldings — Victor's mother and sisters; and 
the house is continually gay with suppers and 
parties. 

“ How my letter wanders ! It is a sick 
letter, Isabel, a dead letter. I must not 
close without going back to the Merediths 
once more. People have been driving out 
to see the little farm and the curious little 
house of Dent Meredith's bride elect — a 
girl called Pansy Something. It lies near 
enough to the turnpike to be in full view — 
too full view. They say it is like a poultry 
farm and that the bride is a kind of American 
goose girl : it will be a marriage between 
geology and the geese. The geese will 
have the best of it. 


360 The Mettle of the Pasture 

“ Dearest friend, what shall I tell you of 
my own life — of my nights, of the mornings 
when I wake, of these long, lonesome, sum- 
mer afternoons ? Nothing, nothing, nothing, 
nothing ! I should rather write to you how 
my thoughts go back to the years of our girl- 
hood together when we were so happy, Isabel, 
so happy, so happy ! What ideals we formed 
as to our marriages and our futures ! 

“ Kate. 

P.S. — I meant to tell you that of course 
I shall do everything in my power to break 
up the old friendship between George and 
Rowan. Indeed, I have already done it.” 


VI 


This letter brought Isabel home at once 
through three days of continuous travel. 
From the station she had herself driven 
straight to Mrs. Osborn's house, and she 
held the letter in her hand as she went. 

Her visit lasted for some time and it was 
not pleasant. When Mrs. Osborn hastened 
down, surprised at Isabel's return and pre- 
pared to greet her with the old warmth, her 
greeting was repelled and she herself recoiled, 
hurt and disposed to demand an explanation. 

‘‘Isabel," she said reproachfully, “is this 
the way you come back to me ? " 

Isabel did not heed but spoke : “ As soon 
as I received this letter, I determined to come 
home. I wished to know at once what these 
things are that are being said about Rowan. 
What are they ? " 

Mrs. Osborn hesitated : “ I should rather 
not tell you." 

361 


362 The Mettle of the Pasture 

But you must tell me : my name has 
been brought into this, and I must know.” 

While she listened her eyes flashed and 
when she spoke her voice trembled with 
excitement and anger. These things are 
not true,” she said. ‘‘ Only Rowan and I 
know what passed between us. I told no 
one, he told no one, and it is no one's right 
to know. A great wrong has been done 
him and a great wrong has been done me ; 
and I shall stay here until these wrongs are 
righted.” 

“ And is it your feeling that you must 
begin with me ? ” said Mrs. Osborn, bitterly. 

Yes, Kate ; you should not have believed 
these things. You remember our once say- 
ing to each other that we would try never 
to believe slander or speak slander or think 
slander ? It is unworthy of you to have 
done so now.” 

Do you realize to whom you are speak- 
ing, and that what I have done has been 
through friendship for you ? ” 

Isabel shook her head resolvedly. “ Your 
friendship for me cannot exact of you that 


The Mettle of the Pasture 363 

you should be untrue to yourself and false 
to others. You say that you refuse to speak 
to Rowan on the street. You say that you 
have broken up the friendship between Mr. 
Osborn and him. Rowan is the truest friend 
Mr. Osborn has ever had; you know this. 
But in breaking off* that friendship, you have 
done more than you have realized : you have 
ended my friendship with you.” 

^‘And this is gratitude for my devotion 
to you and my willingness to fight your 
battles ! ” said Mrs. Osborn, rising. 

“ You cannot fight my battles without 
fighting Rowan's. My wish to marry him 
or not to marry him is one thing ; my will- 
ingness to see him ruined is another.” 

Isabel drove home. She rang the bell as 
though she were a stranger. When her 
maid met her at the door, overjoyed at her 
return, she asked for her grandmother and 
passed at once into her parlors. As she 
did so, Mrs. Conyers came through the hall, 
dressed to go out. At the sound of Isabel’s 
voice, she, who having once taken hold of a 
thing never let it go, dropped her parasol ; 


364 The Mettle of the Pasture 

and as she stooped to pick it up, the blood 
rushed to her face. 

I wish to speak to you,’’ said Isabel, 
coming quickly out into the hall as though to 
prevent her grandmother’s exit. Her voice 
was low and full of shame and indignation. 

‘‘ I am at your service for a little while,” 
said Mrs. Conyers, carelessly ; later I am 
compelled to go out.” She entered the par- 
lors, followed by Isabel, and, seating herself 
in the nearest chair, finished buttoning her 
glove. 

Isabel sat silent a moment, shocked by 
her reception. She had not realized that she 
was no longer the idol of that household and 
of its central mind ; and we are all loath to 
give up faith in our being loved still, where 
we have been loved ever. She was not aware 
that since she had left home she had been 
disinherited. She would not have cared had 
she known ; but she was now facing what was 
involved in the disinheritance — dislike; and 
in the beginning of dislike there was the 
ending of the old awe with which the grand- 
mother had once regarded the grandchild. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 365 

But she came quickly back to the grave 
matter uppermost in her mind. Grand- 
mother/’ she said, I received a few days 
ago a letter from Kate Osborn. In it she 
told me that there were stories in circulation 
about Rowan. I have come home to find 
out what these stories are. On the way from 
the station I stopped at Mrs. Osborn’s, and 
she told me. Grandmother, this is your 
work.” 

Mrs. Conyers pushed down the thumb of 
her glove. 

Have I denied it ? But why do you at- 
tempt to deny that it is also your work ? ” 

Isabel sat regarding her with speechless, 
deepening horror. She was not prepared 
for this revelation. Mrs. Conyers did not 
wait, but pressed on with a certain debonair 
enjoyment of her advantage. 

‘‘You refused to recognize my right to 
understand a matter that affected me and 
affected other members of the family as well 
as yourself You showed no regard for the 
love I had cherished for you many a year. 
You put me aside as though I had no claim 


366 The Mettle of the Pasture 

upon your confidence — I believe you said 
I was not worthy of it ; but my memory is 
failing — perhaps I wrong you.” 

“ It is true I ” said Isabel, with triumphant 
joy in reaffirming it on present grounds. “ It 
is true ! ” 

‘‘Very well,” said Mrs. Conyers, “we 
shall let that pass. It was of consequence 
then ; it is of no consequence now : these 
little personal matters are very trivial. But 
there was a serious matter that you left on 
my hands ; the world always demands an 
explanation of what it is compelled to see 
and cannot understand. If no explanation 
is given, it creates an explanation. It was 
my duty to see that it did not create an ex- 
planation in this case. Whatever it may 
have been that took place between you and 
Rowan, I did not intend that the responsi- 
bility should rest upon you, even though 
you may have been willing that it should 
rest there. You discarded Rowan ; I was 
compelled to prevent people from thinking 
that Rowan discarded you. Your reason 
for discarding him you refused to confide 


The Mettle of the Pasture 367 

to me; I was compelled therefore to decide 
for myself what it probably was. Ordinarily 
when a man is dropped by a girl under such 
circumstances, it is for this,” she tapped the 
tips of her fingers one by one as she went 
on, “ or for this, or for this, or for this ; you 
can supply the omitted words — nearly any 
one can — the world always does. You see, 
it becomes interesting. As I had not your 
authority for stating which one of these was 
the real reason, I was compelled to leave 
people at liberty to choose for themselves. 
I could only say that I myself did not know ; 
but that certainly it was for some one of 
these reasons, or two of them, or for all of 
them.” 

“ You have tried to ruin him ! ” Isabel 
cried, white with suffering. 

‘‘ On the contrary, I received my whole 
idea of this from you. Nothing that I said 
to others about him was quite so bad as what 
you said to me ; for you knew the real rea- 
son of your discarding him, and the reason 
was so bad — or so good — that you could 
not even confide it to me, your natural con- 


368 The Mettle of the Pasture 


fidant. You remember saying that we must 
drop him from the list of our acquaintances, 
must not receive him at the house, or rec- 
ognize him in society, or speak to him in 
public. I protested that this would be very 
unjust to him, and that he might ask me at 
least the grounds for so insulting him ; you 
assured me that he would never dare ask. 
And now you affect to be displeased with me 
for believing what you said, and trying to 
defend you from criticism, and trying to pro- 
tect the good name of the family.” 

Ah,” cried Isabel, “you can give fair 
reasons for foul deeds. You always could. 
We often do, we women. The blacker our 
conduct, the better the names with which we 
cover it. If you would only glory openly in 
what you have done and stand by it ! Not 
a word of what you have said is true, as you 
have said it. When I left home not a hu- 
man being but yourself knew that there had 
been trouble between Rowan and me. It 
need never have become public, had you let 
the matter be as I asked you to do, and as 
you solemnly promised that you would. It 


The Mettle of the Pasture 369 

is you who have deliberately made the trouble 
and scattered the gossip and spread the scan- 
dal. Why do you not avow that your mo- 
tive was revenge, and that your passion was 
not justice, but malice. Ah, you are too 
deep a woman to try to seem so shallow ! ” 

“ Can I be of any further service to you ? ” 
said Mrs. Conyers with perfect politeness, 
rising. “I am sorry that the hour of my 
engagement has come. Are you to be in 
town long ? 

I shall be here until I have undone what 
you have done,'' cried Isabel, rising also and 
shaking with rage. “ The decencies of life 
compel me to shield you still, and for that 
reason I shall stay in this house. I am not 
obliged to ask this as a privilege ; it is my 
right." 

Then I shall have the pleasure of seeing 
you often." 

Isabel went up to her room as usual and 
summoned her maid, and ordered her car- 
riage to be ready in half an hour. 

Half an hour later she came down and 
drove to the Hardages'. She showed 


no 


370 The Mettle of the Pasture 

pleasure in seeing him again, and he no sur- 
prise in seeing her. 

“ I have been expecting you,” he said ; “ I 
thought you would be brought back by all 
this.” 

‘‘Then you have heard what they are say- 
ing about Rowan ?” 

“ I suppose we have all heard,” he replied, 
looking at her sorrowfully. 

“ You have not believed these things ? ” 

“ I have denied them as far as I could. I 
should have denied that anything had oc- 
curred ; but you remember I could not do 
that after what you told me. You said some- 
thing had occurred.” 

“ Yes, I know,” she said. “ But you now 
have my authority at least to say that these 
things are not true. What I planned for the 
best has been misused and turned against 
him and against me. Have you seen 
him ? ” 

“ He has been in town, but I have not 
seen him.” 

“ Then you must see him at once. Tell 
me one thing : have you heard it said that I 


The Mettle of the Pasture 371 

am responsible for the circulation of these 
stories ? ** 

Yes/’ 

“ Do you suppose he has heard that ? And 
could he believe it? Yet might he not 
believe it ? But how could he, how could 
he!” 

‘‘You must come here and stay with us. 
Anna will want you.” He could not tell 
her his reason for understanding that she 
would not wish to stay at home. 

“ No, I should like to come ; but it is 
better for me to stay at home. But I wish 
Rowan to come to see me here. Judge 
Morris — has he done nothing ? ” 

“He does not know. No one has told 
him.” 

Her expression showed that she did not 
understand. 

“Years ago, when he was about Rowan’s 
age, scandals like these were circulated about 
him. We know how much his life is wrapped 
up in Rowan. He has not been well this 
summer : we spared him.” 

“ But you must tell him at once. Say 


372 The Mettle of the Pasture 

that I beg him to write to Rowan to come 
to see him. I want Rowan to tell him every- 
thing — and to tell you everything.'* 

All the next day Judge Morris stayed in 
his rooms. The end of life seemed suddenly 
to have been bent around until it touched 
the beginning. At last he understood. 

“It was she^ then," he said. “ I always 
suspected her; but I had no proof of her 
guilt ; and if she had not been guilty, she 
could never have proved her innocence. And 
now for years she has smiled at me, clasped 
my hands, whispered into my ear, laughed 
in my eyes, seemed to be everything to me 
that was true. Well, she has been everything 
that is false. And now she has fallen upon 
the son of the woman whom she tore from 
me. And the vultures of scandal are tearing 
at his heart. And he will never be able to 
prove his innocence !” 

He stayed in his rooms all that day. 
Rowan, in answer to his summons, had said 
that he should come about the middle of the 
afternoon ; and it was near the middle of the 


The Mettle of the Pasture 373 

afternoon now. As he counted the minutes, 
Judge Morris was unable to shut out from 
his mind the gloomier possibilities of the case. 

“ There is some truth behind all this,’’ he 
said. ‘‘ She broke her engagement with him, 
— at least, she severed all relations with him ; 
and she would not do that without grave 
reason.” He was compelled to believe that 
she must have learned from Rowan himself 
the things that had compelled her painful 
course. Why had Rowan never confided 
these things to him ? His mind, while re- 
maining the mind of a friend, almost the mind 
of a father toward a son, became also the mind 
of a lawyer, a criminal lawyer, with the old, 
fixed, human bloodhound passion for the 
scent of crime and the footsteps of guilt. 

It was with both attitudes that he himself 
answered Rowan’s ring ; he opened the door 
half warmly and half coldly. In former 
years when working up his great cases in- 
volving life and death, it had been an occa- 
sional custom of his to receive his clients, 
if they were socially his friends, not in his 
private office, but in his rooms ; it was part 


374 The Mettle of the Pasture 

of his nature to show them at such crises his 
unshaken trust in their characters. He re- 
ceived Rowan in his rooms now. It was a 
clear day ; the rooms had large windows ; 
and the light streaming in took from them 
all the comfort which they acquired under 
gaslight: the carpets were faded, the rugs 
were worn out and lay in the wrong places. 
It was seen to be a desolate place for a 
desolated life. 

“ How are you, Rowan ? he said, speak- 
ing as though he had seen him the day 
before, and taking no note of changes in his 
appearance. Without further words he led 
the way into his sitting room and seated 
himself in his leather chair. 

Will you smoke ? ” 

They had often smoked as they sat thus 
when business was before them, or if no 
business, questions to be intimately discussed 
about life and character and good and bad. 
Rowan did not heed the invitation, and the 
Judge lighted a cigar for himself. He was 
a long time in lighting it, and burned two or 
three matches at the end of it after it was 


The Mettle of the Pasture 375 

lighted, keeping a cloud of smoke before his 
eyes and keeping his eyes closed. When 
the smoke rose and he lay back in his chair, 
he looked across at the young man with the 
eyes of an old lawyer who had drawn the 
truth out of the breast of many a criminal 
by no other command than their manly 
light. Rowan sat before him without an 
effort at composure. There was something 
about him that suggested a young officer out 
of uniform, come home with a browned face 
to try to get himself court-martialled. He 
spoke first : 

“ I have had Isabel’s letter, and I have 
come to tell you.” 

“ I need not say to you, tell me the whole 
truth.” 

No, you need not say that to me. I 
should have told you long ago, if it had been 
a duty. But it was not a duty. You had 
not the right to know ; there was no reason 
why you should know. This was a matter 
which concerned only the woman whom I 
was to marry.” His manner had the firm 
and quiet courtesy that was his birthright. 


3/6 The Mettle of the Pasture 

A little after dark, Rowan emerged into 
the street. His carriage was waiting for him 
and he entered it and went home. Some 
minutes later, Judge Morris came down and 
walked to the Hardages'. He rang and 
asked for Professor Hardage and waited for 
him on the door-step. When Professor 
Hardage appeared, he said to him very 
solemnly : Get your hat.” 

The two men walked away, the Judge 
directing their course toward the edge of the 
town. ‘‘ Let us get to a quiet place,” he 
said, “ where we can talk without being over- 
heard.” It was a pleasant summer night 
and the moon was shining, and they stepped 
off the sidewalk and took the middle of the 
pike. The Judge spoke at last, looking 
straight ahead. 

‘‘He had a child, and when he asked Isa- 
bel to marry him he told her.” 

They walked on for a while without 
anything further being said. When Pro- 
fessor Hardage spoke, his tone was re- 
flective : 

“It was this that made it impossible for 


The Mettle of the Pasture 377 

her to marry him. Her love for him was 
everything to her ; he destroyed himself for 
her when he destroyed himself as an ideal. 
Did he tell you the story ? ” 

“ Told everything.” 

By and by the Judge resumed: “It was 
a student’s love affair, and he would have 
married her. She said that if she married 
him, there would never be any happiness for 
her in life ; she was not in his social class, 
and, moreover, their marriage would never be 
understood as anything but a refuge from 
their shame, and neither of them would be 
able to deny this. She disappeared some- 
time after the birth of the child. More 
than a year later, maybe it was two years, 
he received a letter from her stating that she 
was married to a man in her own class and 
that her husband suspected nothing, and 
that she expected to live a faithful wife to 
him and be the mother of his children. 
The child had been adopted, the traces of 
its parentage had been wiped out, those who 
had adopted it could do more for its life and 
honor than he could. She begged him not 


378 The Mettle of the Pasture 

to try to find her or ruin her by communi- 
cating the past to her husband. That’s 
about all.” 

^‘The old tragedy — old except to them.” 

“ Old enough. Were we not speaking the 
other day of how the old tragedies are the new 
ones ? I get something new out of this ; you 
get the old. What strikes me about it is that 
the man has declined to shirk — that he has felt 
called upon not to injure any other life by his 
silence. I wish I had a right to call it the mettle 
of a young American, his truthfulness. As he 
put the case to me, what he got out of it was 
this : Here was a girl deceiving her husband 
about her past — otherwise he would never 
have married her. As the world values such 
things, what it expected of Rowan was that he 
should go off and marry a girl and conceal his 
past. He said that he would not lie to a class- 
mate in college, he would not cheat a pro- 
fessor ; was it any better silently to lie to and 
cheat the woman that he loved and expected 
to make the mother of his children ? What- 
ever he might have done with any one else, 
there was something in the nature of the girl 


The Mettle of the Pasture 379 

whom he did come to love that made it im- 
possible : she drove untruthfulness out of 
him as health drives away disease. He saved 
his honor with her, but he lost her.’* 

“ She saved her honor through giving up 
him. But it is high ground, it is a sad hill- 
top, that each has climbed to.” 

“ Hardage, we can climb so high that we 
freeze.” 

They turned back. The Judge spoke 
again with a certain sad pride : 

I like their mettle, it is Shakespearean 
mettle, it is American mettle. We lie in 
business, and we lie in religion, and we lie to 
women. Perhaps if a man stopped lying to 
a woman, by and by he might begin to stop 
lying for money, and at last stop lying with 
his Maker. But this boy, what can you and 
I do for him ? We can never tell the truth 
about this ; and if we try to clear him, un- 
less we ourselves lie, we shall leave him the 
victim of a flock of lies.” 

Isabel remained at home a week. 

During her first meeting with Rowan, she 
effaced all evidences that there had ever 


380 The Mettle of the Pasture 

been a love affair between them. They re- 
sumed their social relations temporarily and 
for a definite purpose — this was what she 
made him understand at the outset and to the 
end. All that she said to him, all that she did, 
had no further significance than her general 
interest in his welfare and her determination 
to silence the scandal for which she herself was 
in a way innocently responsible. Their old 
life without reference to it was assumed to 
be ended ; and she put all her interest into 
what she assumed to be his new life ; this she 
spoke of as a certainty, keeping herself out 
of it as related to it in any way. She forced 
him to talk about his work, his plans, his 
ambitions ; made him feel always not only 
that she did not wish to see him suffer, but 
that she expected to see him succeed. 

They were seen walking together and driv- 
ing together. He demurred, but she insisted. 

I will not accept such a sacrifice,’* he said, 
but she overruled him by her reply : “ It is 
not a sacrifice ; it is a vindication of myself, 
that you cannot oppose.” But he knew that 
there was more in it than what she called 


The Mettle of the Pasture 381 


vindication of herself ; there was the fighting 
friendship of a comrade. 

During these days, Isabel met cold faces. 
She found herself a fresh target for criticism, 
a further source of misunderstanding. And 
there was fresh suffering, too, which no one 
could have foreseen. Late one twilight 
when she and Rowan were driving, they 
passed Marguerite driving also, she being 
still a guest at the Merediths’, and getting 
well. Each carriage was driving slowly, and 
the road was not wide, and the wheels al- 
most locked, and there was time enough for 
everything to be seen. And the next day. 
Marguerite went home from the Merediths’ 
and passed into a second long illness. 

The day came for Isabel to leave — she 
was going away to remain a long time, a 
year, two years. They had had their last 
drive and twilight was falling when they 
returned to the Hardages’. She was stand- 
ing on the steps as she gave him both her 
hands. 

Good-by,” she said, in the voice of one 
who had finished her work. I hardly 


382 The Mettle of the Pasture 

know what to say — I have said everything. 
Perhaps I ought to tell you my last feeling 
is, that you will make life a success, -that 
nothing will pull you down. I suppose 
that the life of each of us, if it is worth 
while, is not made up of one great effort and 
of one failure or of one success, but of many 
efforts, many failures, partial successes. But 
I am afraid we all try at first to realize our 
dreams. Good-by ! ” 

‘‘ Marry me,'’ he said, tightening his grasp 
on her hands and speaking as though he had 
the right. 

She stepped quickly back from him. She 
felt a shock, a delicate wound, and she said 
with sudden coldness : “ I did not think you 
would so misjudge me in all that I have been 
trying to do.” 

She went quickly in. 


VII 


It was a morning in the middle of 
October when Dent and Pansy were 
married. 

The night before had been cool and clear 
after a rain and a long-speared frost had 
fallen. Even before the sun lifted itself 
above the white land, a full red rose of the 
sky behind the rotting barn, those early 
abroad foresaw what the day would be. 
Nature had taken personal interest in this 
union of her two children, who worshipped 
her in their work and guarded her laws in 
their characters, and had arranged that she 
herself should be present in bridal livery. 

The two prim little evergreens which grew 
one on each side of the door-step waited at 
respectful attention like heavily powdered 
festal lackeys. The scraggy aged cedars of 
the yard stood about in green velvet and 
brocade incrusted with gems. The door- 
steps themselves were softly piled with the 
383 


384 The Mettle of the Pasture 

white flowers of the frost, and the bricks of 
the pavement strewn with multitudinous 
shells and stars of dew and air. Every poor 
stub of grass, so economically cropped by the 
geese, wore something to make it shine. In 
the back yard a clothes-line stretched be- 
tween a damson and a peach tree, and on 
it hung forgotten some of Pansy’s father’s 
underclothes; but Nature did what she 
^ould to make the toiler’s raiment look like 
diamonded banners, flung bravely to the 
breeze in honor of his new son-in-law. 
Everything — the duck troughs, the roof of 
the stable, the cart shafts, the dry-goods box 
used as a kennel — had ugliness hidden away 
under that prodigal revelling ermine of 
decoration. The sun itself had not long 
risen before Nature even drew over that a 
bridal veil of silver mist, so that the whole 
earth was left wrapped in whiteness that be- 
came holiness. 

Pansy had said that she desired a quiet 
wedding, so that she herself had shut up 
the ducks that they might not get to Mrs. 
Meredith. And then she had made the 


The Mettle of the Pasture 385 

rounds and fed everything ; and now a cer- 
tain lethargy and stupor of food quieted all 
creatures and gave to the valley the dignity 
of a vocal solitude. 

The botanist bride was not in the least 
abashed during the ceremony. Nor proud : 
Mrs. Meredith more gratefully noticed this. 
And she watched closely and discovered 
with relief that Pansy did not once glance 
at her with uneasiness or for approval. The 
mother looked at Dent with eyes growing 
dim. She will never seem to be the wife 
of my son/' she said, “ but she will make 
her children look like his children." 

And so it was all over and they were gone 
— slipped away through the hiding white 
mists without a doubt of themselves, without 
a doubt of each other, mating as naturally 
as the wild creatures who never know the 
problems of human selection, or the prob- 
lems that civilization leaves to be settled 
after selection has been made. 

Mrs. Meredith and Rowan and the 
clergyman were left with the father and the 
children, and with an unexampled wedding 


386 The Mettle of the Pasture 

collation — one of Pansy’s underived master^ 
pieces. The clergyman frightened the 
younger children ; they had never seen his 
like either with respect to his professional 
robes or his superhuman clerical voice — 
their imaginations balancing unsteadily be- 
tween the impossibility of his being a man 
in a nightgown and the impossibility of his 
being a woman with a mustache. 

After his departure their fright and appre- 
hensions settled on Mrs. Meredith. They 
ranged themselves on chairs side by side 
against a wall, and sat confronting her like 
a class in the public school fated to be ex- 
amined in deadly branches. None moved 
except when she spoke, and then all writhed 
together but each in a different way ; the most 
comforting word from her produced a family 
spasm with individual proclivities. Rowan 
tried to talk with the father about crops : 
they were frankly embarrassed. What can a 
young man with two thousand acres of the 
best land say to an old man with fifty of the 
poorest ? 

The mother and son drove home in 


The Mettle of the Pasture 387 

silence. She drew one of his hands into 
her lap and held it with close pressure. 
They did not look at each other. 

As the carriage rolled easily over the 
curved driveway, through the noble forest 
trees they caught glimpses of the house now 
standing clear in afternoon sunshine. Each 
had the same thought of how empty it 
waited there without Dent — henceforth less 
than a son, yet how much more ; more than 
brother, but how much less. How a brief 
ceremony can bind separated lives and tear 
bound ones apart ! 

Rowan,'’ she said, as they walked slowly 
from the carriage to the porch, she having 
clasped his arm more intimately, “ there is 
something I have wanted to do and have been 
trying to do for a long time. It must not 
be put off any longer. We must go over the 
house this afternoon. There are a great many 
things that I wish to show you and speak to 
you about — things that have to be divided 
between you and Dent." 

“Not to-day! not to-day!” he cried, 
turning to her with quick appeal. But 


388 The Mettle of the Pasture 

she shook her head slowly, with brave 
cheerfulness. 

“Yes; to-day. Now; and then we shall 
be over with it. Wait for me here.” She 
passed down the long hall to her bedroom, 
and as she disappeared he rushed into the 
parlors and threw himself on a couch with 
his hands before his face ; then he sprang up 
and came out into the hall again and waited 
with a quiet face. 

When she returned, smiling, she brought 
with her a large bunch of keys, and she took 
his arm dependently as they went up the 
wide staircase. She led him to the upper 
bedrooms first — in earlier years so crowded 
and gay with guests, but unused during later 
ones. The shutters were closed, and the 
afternoon sun shot yellow shafts against 
floors and walls. There was a perfume of 
lavender, of rose leaves. 

“ Somewhere in one of these closets there 
is a roll of linen.” She opened one after an- 
other, looking into each. “ No ; it is not 
here. Then it must be in there. Yes ; here 
it is. This linen was spun and woven from 


The Mettle of the Pasture 389 

flax grown on your great-great-grandfather’s 
land. Look at it ! It is beautifully made. 
Each generation of the family has inherited 
part and left the rest for generations yet to 
come. Half of it is yours, half is Dent’s. 
When it has been divided until there is no 
longer enough to divide, that will be the last 
of the home-made linen of the old time. It 
was a good time. Rowan ; it produced mas- 
terful men and masterful women, not man- 
nish women. Perhaps the golden age of our 
nation will some day prove to have been the 
period of the home-spun Americans.” 

As they passed on she spoke to him with 
an increasing, almost unnatural gayety. He 
had a new appreciation of what her charm 
must have been when she was a girl. The 
rooms were full of memories to her; many 
of the articles that she caressed with her fin- 
gers, and lingered over with reluctant eyes, 
connected themselves with days and nights of 
revelry and the joy of living; also with prides 
and deeds which ennobled her recollection. 

^‘You and Dent know that your father 
divided equally all that he had. But every- 


390 The Mettle of the Pasture 

thing in the house is mine, and I have made 
no will and shall not make any. What is 
mine belongs to you two alike. Still, I have 
made a list of things that I think he would 
rather have, and a list of things for you — 
merely because I wish to give something to 
each of you directly.” 

In a room on a lower floor she unlocked 
a closet, the walls of which were lined with 
shelves. She peeped in ; then she withdrew 
her head and started to lock the door again ; 
but she changed her mind and laughed. 

“ Do you know what these things are ? ” 
She touched a large box, and he carried it 
over to the bed and she lifted the top off, 
exposing the contents. Did you ever see 
anything so black? This was the clerical 
robe in which one of your ancestors used to 
read his sermons. He is the one who wrote 
the treatise on ‘God Properly and Unproperly 
Understood.’ He was the great seminarian 
in your father’s family — the portrait in the 
hall, you know. I shall not decide whether 
you or Dent must inherit this ; decide for 
yourselves ; I imagine you will end it in the 


The Mettle of the Pasture 391 

quarrel. How black it is, and what black 
sermons flew out of it — ravens, instead of 
white doves, of the Holy Spirit. He was 
the friend of Jonathan Edwards.’’ She made 
a wry face as he put the box back into the 
closet ; and she laughed again as she locked 
it in. 

Here are some things from my side of 
the family.” And she drew open a long 
drawer and spoke with proud reticence. 
They stood looking down at part of the 
uniform of an officer of the Revolution. 
She lifted one corner of it and disclosed a 
sword beneath. She lifted another corner of 
the coat and exposed a roll of parchment. 
“ I suppose 1 should have had this parch- 
ment framed and hung up downstairs, so 
that it would be the first thing seen by any 
one entering the front door ; and this sword 
should have been suspended over the fire- 
place, or have been exposed under a glass 
case in the parlors ; and the uniform should 
have been fitted on a tailor’s manikin; and 
we should have lectured to our guests on 
our worship of our ancestors — in the new 


392 The Mettle of the Pasture 

American way, in the Chino-American way. 
But I’m afraid we go to the other extreme, 
Rowan ; perhaps we are proud of the fact 
that we are not boastful. Instead of con- 
cerning ourselves with those who shed glory 
on us, we have concerned ourselves with the 
question whether we are shedding glory on 
them. Still, I wonder whether our ancestors 
may not possibly be offended that we say 
so little about them ! ” 

She led him up and down halls and from 
floor to floor. 

Of course you know this room — the 
nursery. Here is where you began to be 
a bad boy ; and you began before you can 
remember. Did you never see these things 
before ? They were your first soldiers — I 
have left them to Dent. And here are some 
of Dent’s things that I have left to you. 
For one thing, his castanets. His father 
and I never knew why he cried for casta- 
nets. He said that Dent by all the laws of 
spiritual inheritance from his side should be 
wanting the timbrel and harp — Biblical in- 
fluence, you understand ; but that my influ- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 393 

ence interfered and turned timbrel and harp 
into castanets. Do you remember the day 
when you ran away with. Dent and took him 
to a prize fight? After that you wanted 
boxing-gloves, and Dent was crazy for a 
sponge. You fought hiniy and he sponged 
you. Here is the sponge; I do not know 
where the gloves are. And here are some 
things that belong to both of you ; they are 
mine; they go with me.’' She laid her hand 
on a little box wrapped and tied, then quickly 
shut the closet. 

In a room especially fragrant with lavender 
she opened a press in the wall and turned 
her face away from him for a moment. 

This is my bridal dress. This was my 
bridal veil ; it has been the bridal veil of 
girls in my family for a good many genera- 
tions. These were my slippers ; you see I 
had a large foot ; but it was well shaped — 
it was a woman’s foot. That was my vanity 
— not to have a little foot. I leave these 
things to you both. I hope each of you 
may have a daughter to wear the dress and 
the veil.” For the first time she brushed 


394 Mettle of the Pasture 

some tears from her eyes. ‘‘ I look to my 
sons for sons and daughters.” 

It was near sunset when they stood again 
at the foot of the staircase. She was white 
and tired, but her spirit refused to be con- 
quered. 

“ I think I shall lie down now,” she said, 
‘‘so I shall say good night to you here. Rowan. 
Fix the tray for me yourself, pour me out 
some tea, and butter me a roll.” They stood 
looking into each other’s eyes. She saw 
things in his which caused her suddenly to 
draw his forehead over and press her lips 
to one and then to the other, again and 
again. 

The sun streamed through the windows, 
level and red, lighting up the darkened hall, 
lighting up the head and shoulders of his 
mother. 

An hour later he sat at the head of his 
table alone — a table arranged for two instead 
of three. At the back of his chair waited 
the aged servitor of the household, gray- 
haired, discreet, knowing many things about 
earlier days on which rested the seal of in- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 395 

corruptible silence. A younger servant per- 
formed the duties. 

He sat at the head of his table and excused 
the absence of his mother and forced himself 
with the pride and dignity of his race to give 
no sign of what had passed that day. His 
mother*s maid entered, bringing him in a 
crystal vase a dark red flower for his coat. 
She had always given him that same dark 
red flower after he had turned into manhood. 

It is your kind,*' she said ; I understand.** 

He arranged the tray for her, pouring out 
her tea, buttering the rolls. Then he forced 
himself to eat his supper as usual. From 
old candlesticks on the table a silver radiance 
was shed on the massive silver, on the gem- 
like glass. Candelabra on the mantelpiece 
and the sideboard lighted up the browned 
oak of the walls. 

He left the table at last, giving and hearing 
a good night. The servants efliciently ended 
their duties and put out the lights. In the 
front hall lamps were left burning ; there 
were lamps and candles in the library. He 
went oflF to a room on the ground floor in 


396 The Mettle of the Pasture 

one ell of the house ; it was his sitting 
room, smoking room, the lounging place of 
his friends. In one corner stood a large 
desk, holding old family papers ; here also 
were articles that he himself had lately been 
engaged on — topics relating to scientific 
agriculture, soils, and stock-raising. It was 
the road by which some of the country 
gentlemen who had been his forefathers 
passed into a larger life of practical affairs — 
going into the Legislature of the state or 
into the Senate ; and he had thought of this 
as a future for himself. For an hour or two 
he looked through family papers. 

Then he put them aside and squarely 
faced the meaning of the day. His thoughts 
traversed the whole track of Dent’s life — 
one straight track upward. No deviations, 
no pitfalls there, no rising and falling. And 
now early marriage and safety from so many 
problems ; with work and honors and wifely 
love and children : work and rest and duty 
to the end. Dent had called him into his 
room that morning after he was dressed for 
his wedding and had started to thank him for 


The Mettle of the Pasture 397 

his love and care and guardianship and then 
had broken down and they had locked their 
arms around each other, trying not to say 
what could not be said. 

He lived again through that long after- 
noon with his mother. What had the whole 
day been to her and how she had risen to 
meet with nobility all its sadnesses ! Her 
smile lived before him ; and her eyes, shin- 
ing with increasing brightness as she dwelt 
upon things that meant fading sunlight : she 
fondling the playthings of his infancy, keep- 
ing some of them to be folded away with her 
at last; touching her bridal dress and speaking 
her reliance on her sons for sons and daugh- 
ters ; at the close of the long trying day 
standing at the foot of the staircase white 
with weariness and pain, but so brave, so 
sweet, so unconquerable. He knew that 
she was not sleeping now, that she was think- 
ing of him, that she had borne everything 
and would bear everything not only because 
it was due to herself, but because it was due 
to him. 

He turned out the lights and sat at a win- 


398 The Mettle of the Pasture 

dow opening upon the night. The voices 
of the land came in to him, the voices of the 
vanished life of its strong men. 

He remembered the kind of day it was 
when he first saw through its autumn trees 
the scattered buildings of his university. 
What impressions it had made upon him 
as it awaited him there, gray with stateliness, 
hoary with its honors, pervaded with the very 
breath and spirit of his country. He re- 
called his meeting with his professors, the 
choosing of his studies, the selection of a 
place in which to live. Then had followed 
what had been the great spectacle and ex- 
perience of his life — the assembling of picked 
young men, all eager like greyhounds at the 
slips to show what was in them, of what stuff 
they were made, what strength and hardi- 
hood and robust virtues, and gifts and grace 
for manly intercourse. He had been caught 
up and swept off his feet by that influence. 
Looking back as he did to that great plateau 
which was his home, for the first time he had 
felt that he was not only a youth of an 
American commonwealth, but a youth of his 


399 


The Mettle of the Pasture 

whole country. They were all American 
youths there, as opposed to English youths 
and German youths and Russian youths. 
There flamed up in him the fierce passion, 
which he believed to be burning in them all, 
to show his mettle — the mettle of his state, 
the mettle of his nation. To him, newly come 
into this camp of young men, it lay around 
the walls of the university like a white spir- 
itual host, chosen youths to be made into 
chosen men. And he remembered how 
little he then knew that about this white 
host hung the red host of those camp-fol- 
lowers, who beleaguer in outer darkness 
every army of men. 

Then had followed warfare, double war- 
fare : the ardent attack on work and study ; 
athletic play, good fellowship ; visits late at 
night to the chambers of new friends — 
chambers rich in furniture and pictures, 
friends richer in old names and fine manners 
and beautiful boyish gallant ways ; his club 
and his secret society, and the whole bewil- 
dering maddening enchantment of student 
life, where work and duty and lights and 


400 The Mettle of the Pasture 

wine and poverty and want and flesh and 
spirit strive together each for its own. At 
this point he put these memories away, locked 
them from himself in their long silence. 

Near midnight he made his way quietly 
back into the main hall. He turned out 
the lamps and lighted his bedroom candle 
and started toward the stairway, holding it 
in front of him a little above his head, a 
low-moving star through the gloom. As he 
passed between two portraits, he paused 
with sudden impulse and, going over to one, 
held his candle up before the face and stud- 
ied it once more. A man, black-browed, 
black-robed, black-bearded, looked down 
into his eyes as one who had authority to 
speak. He looked far down upon his off- 
spring, and he said to him : You may be 
one of those who through the flesh are chosen 
to be damned. But if He chooses to damn 
you, then be damned, but do not question 
His mercy or His justice : it is not for you 
to alter the fixed and the eternal.'* 

He crossed with his candle to the oppo- 
site wall and held it up before another face : 


The Mettle of the Pasture 401 

a man full of red blood out to the skin ; 
full-lipped, red-lipped ; audacious about the 
forehead and brows, and beautiful over his 
thick careless hair through which a girfs 
fingers seemed lately to have wandered. 
He looked level out at his offspring as 
though he still stood throbbing on the earth 
and he spoke to him : “ I am not alive to 
speak to you with my voice, but I have 
spoken to you through my blood. When 
the cup of life is filled, drain it deep. Why 
does nature fill it if not to have you empty 
it ? 

He blew his candle out in the eyes of that 
passionate face, and holding it in his hand, a 
smoking torch, walked slowly backward and 
forward in the darkness of the hall with only 
a little pale moonlight struggling in through 
a window here and there. 

Then with a second impulse he went over 
and stood close to the dark image who had 
descended into him through the mysteries 
of nature. ^‘You,” he said, ‘‘who helped 
to make me what I am, you had the con- 
science and not the temptation. And you,” 


402 The Mettle of the Pasture 

he said, turning to the hidden face across the 
hall, who helped to make me what I am, 
you had the temptation and not the con- 
science. What does either of you know of 
me who had both ? 

“And what do I know about either of 
you,” he went on, taking up again the 
lonely vigil of his walk and questioning; 
“ you who preached against the Scarlet 
Woman, how do I know you were not the 
scarlet man ? I may have derived both 
from you — both conscience and sin — 
without hypocrisy. All those years during 
which your face was hardening, your one- 
sincere prayer to God may have been that 
He would send you to your appointed place 
before you were found out by men on earth. 
And you with your fresh red face, you may 
have lain down beside the wife of your youth, 
and have lived with her all your years, as 
chaste as she.” 

He resumed his walk, back and forth, 
back and forth ; and his thoughts changed : 

“ What right have I to question them, or 
judge them, or bring them forward in my 


The Mettle of the Pasture 403 

life as being responsible for my nature ? If 
I roll back the responsibility to them, had 
they not fathers ? and had not their fathers 
fathers? and if a man rolls back his deeds 
upon those who are his past, then where will 
responsibility be found at all, and of what 
poor cowardly stuff is each of us ? 

How silent the night was, how silent the 
great house ! Only his slow footsteps 
sounded there like the beating of a heavy 
heart resolved not to fail. 

At last they died away from the front of 
the house, passing inward down a long hall- 
way and growing more muffled ; then the 
sound of them ceased altogether : he stood 
noiselessly before his mother's door. 

He stood there, listening if he might hear 
in the intense stillness a sleeper's breathing. 
“ Disappointed mother," he said as silently 
as a spirit might speak to a spirit. 

Then he came back and slowly began to 
mount the staircase. 

‘Hs it then wrong for a man to do right? 
Is it ever right to do wrong?" he said 
finally. Should I have had my fling and 


404 The Mettle of the Pasture 

never have cared and never have spoken ? 
Is there a true place for deception in the 
world ? May our hypocrisy with each other 
be a virtue? If you have done evil, shall 
you live the whited sepulchre ? Ah, Isabel, 
how easily I could have deceived you ! Does 
a woman care what a man may have done, 
if he be not found out ? Is not her highest 
ideal for him a profitable reputation, not a 
spotless character? No, I will not wrong 
you by these thoughts. It was you who 
said to me that you once loved all that you 
saw in me, and believed that you saw every- 
thing. All that you asked of me was truth- 
fulness that had no sorrow.” 

He reached the top of the stairs and began 
to feel his way toward his room. 

‘^To have one chance in life, in eternity, 
for a white name, and to lose it ! ” 


VIII 


Autumn and winter had passed. Another 
spring was nearly gone. One Monday morn- 
ing of that May, the month of new growths 
and of old growths with new starting-points 
on them, Ambrose Webb was walking to and 
fro across the fresh oilcloth in his short hall ; 
the front door and the back door stood wide 
open, as though to indicate the receptivity 
of his nature in opposite directions ; all the 
windows were wide open, as though to bring 
out of doors into his house : he was much 
more used to the former ; during married 
life the open had been more friendly than 
the interior. But he was now also master 
of the interior and had been for nearly a year. 

Some men succeed best as partial autom- 
ata, as dogs for instance that can be highly 
trained to pull little domestic carts. Ambrose 
had grown used to pulling his cart : he had 
expected to pull it for the rest of his days ; 
and now the cart had suddenly broken down 
40s 


4 o 6 The Mettle of the Pasture 

behind him and he was left standing in the 
middle of the long life-road. But liberty was 
too large a destiny for a mind of that order ; 
the rod of empire does not fit such hands ; it 
was intolerable to Ambrose that he was in 
a world where he could do as he pleased. 

On this courageous Monday, therefore, — 
whatsoever he was to do during the week he 
always decided on Mondays, — after months 
of irresolution he finally determined to make 
a second dash for slavery. But he meant to 
be canny ; this time he would choose a woman 
who, if she ruled him, would not misrule 
him; what he could stand was a sovereign, 
not a despot, and he believed that he had 
found this exceptionally gifted and excep- 
tionally moderated being : it was Miss Anna 
Hardage. 

From the day of Miss Anna’s discovery 
that Ambrose had a dominating consort, she 
had been, she had declared she should be, 
much kinder to him. When his wife died. 
Miss Anna had been kinder still. Affliction 
present, affliction past, her sympathy had not 
failed him. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 407 

He had fallen into the habit of lingering 
a little whenever he took his dairy products 
around to the side porch. Every true man 
yearns for the eyes of some woman ; and 
Ambrose developed the feeling that he should 
like to live with Miss Anna’s. He had no 
gift for judging human conduct except by 
common human standards; and so at bottom 
he believed that Miss Anna in her own way 
had been telling him that if the time ever 
came, she could be counted on to do the 
right thing by him. 

So Ambrose paced the sticky oilcloth this 
morning as a man who has reached the hill 
of decision. He had bought him a new 
buggy and new harness. Hitched to the one 
and wearing the other was his favorite roan 
mare with a Roman nose and a white eye, 
now dozing at the stiles in the front yard 
He had curried her and had combed her 
mane and tail and had had her newly shod, 
and altogether she may have felt too com- 
fortable to keep awake. He himself seemed 
to have received a coating of the same varnish 
as his buggy. Had you pinned a young 


408 The Mettle of the Pasture 

beetle in the back of his coat or on either 
leg of his trousers, as a mere study in shades 
of blackness, it must have been lost to view 
at the distance of a few yards through sheer 
harmony with its background. Under his 
Adam’s apple there was a green tie — the 
bough to the fruit. His eyes sparkled as 
though they had lately been reset and pol- 
ished by a jeweller. 

What now delayed and excited him at 
this last moment before setting out was un- 
certainty as to the offering he should bear 
Miss Anna. Fundamental instincts vaguely 
warned him that love’s altar must be ap- 
proached with gifts. He knew that some 
brought fortune, some warlike deeds, some 
fame, some the beauty of their strength and 
youth. He had none of these to offer ; but 
he was a plain farmer, and he could give 
her what he had so often sold her — a pound 
of butter. 

He had awaited the result of the morning 
churning; but the butter had tasted of turnips, 
and Ambrose did not think that the taste of 
turnips represented the flavor of his emotion. 


The Mettle of the Pasture ‘ 409 

Nevertheless, there was one thing that she 
preferred even to butter ; he would ensnare 
her in her own weakness, catch her in her own 
net : he would take her a jar of cream. 

Miss Anna was in her usual high spirits 
that morning. She was trying a new recipe 
for some dinner comfort for Professor Har- 
dage, when her old cook, who also answered 
the doorbell, returned to the kitchen with 
word that Mr. Webb was in the parlor. 

“ Why, I paid him for his milk,'’ exclaimed 
Miss Anna, without ceasing to beat and stir. 

And what is he doing in the parlor ? Why 
didn't he come around to the side door? 
I'll be back in a moment." She took off 
her apron from an old habit of doing so 
whenever she entered the parlor. 

She gave her dairyman the customary 
hearty greeting, hurried back to get him a 
glass of water, inquired dispassionately about 
grass, inundated him with a bounteous over- 
flow of her impersonal humanity. But he 
did not state his business, and she grew im- 
patient to return to her confection. 

“Do I owe you for anything, Mr. Webb ? " 


410 The Mettle of the Pasture 

she suddenly asked, groping for some clew 
to this lengthening labyrinthine visit. 

He rose and going to the piano raked 
heavily off of the top of it a glass jar and 
brought it over to her and resumed his seat 
with a speaking countenance. 

‘‘ Cream ! cried Miss Anna, delighted, 
running her practised eye downward along 
the bottle to discover where the contents 
usually began to get blue : it was yellow to 
the bottom. “ How much is it ? Fm afraid 
we are too poor to buy so much cream all at 
once.’* 

“ It has no price ; it is above price.” 

“ How much is it, Mr. Webb ? ” she insisted 
with impatience. 

“ It is a free gift.” 

“ Oh, what a beautiful present ! ” exclaimed 
Miss Anna, holding it up to the light ad- 
miringly. “ How can I ever thank you.” 

‘‘ Don’t thank me ; you could have the 
dairy ! You could have the cows, the farm.” 

“ O dear, no ! ” cried Miss Anna, ‘‘ that 
would be altogether too much ! One bottle 
goes far beyond all that I ever hoped for.” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 4 1 1 

‘‘ I wish all women were like you.*’ 

“ O dear, no ! that would not do at all ! 
I am an old maid, and women must marry, 
must, must ! What would become of the 
world ? ** 

‘‘ You need not be an old maid unless you 
wish.” 

‘‘Now, I had never thought of that!” 
observed Miss Anna, in a very peculiar tone. 
“ But we*ll not talk about myself ; let us talk 
about yourself. You are looking extremely 
well — now aren’t you ? ” 

“No one has a better right. It is due 
you to let you know this. There’s good 
timber in me yet.” 

“ Due me ! I am not interested in timber.” 

“ Anna,” he said, throwing his arms 
around one of his knees, “our hour has 
come — we need not wait any longer.” 

“Wait for what?'* inquired Miss Anna, 
bending toward him with the scrutiny of a 
near-sighted person trying to make out some 
looming horror. 

“ Our marriage.” 

Miss Anna rose as by an inward explosion. 


412 The Mettle of the Pasture 


Go, buzzard I ” 

He kept his seat and stared at her with a 
dropped jaw. Habit was powerful in him ; 
and there was something in her anger, in that 
complete sweeping of him out of her way, that 
recalled the domestic usages of former years 
and brought to his lips an involuntary time- 
worn expression : 

“ I meant nothing offensive.” 

I do not know what you meant, and I 
do not care : go ! ” 

He rose and stood before her, and with a 
flash of sincere anger he spoke his honest 
mind : ‘‘ It was you who put the notion in 
my head. You encouraged me, encouraged 
me systematically ; and now you are pre- 
tending. You are a bad woman.” 

“ I think I am a bad woman after what 
has happened to me this morning,” said 
Miss Anna,' dazed and ready to break 
down. 

He hesitated when he reached the door, 
smarting with his honest hurt ; and he 
paused there and made a request. 

“ At least I hope that you will never men- 


The Mettle of the Pasture 413 

tion this ; it might injure me/' He did not 
explain how, but he seemed to understand. 

Do you suppose I’d tell my Maker if 
He did not already know it ? ” She swept 
past him into the kitchen. 

“ As soon as you have done your work, 
go clean the parlor,” she said to the cook. 
“ Give it a good airing. And throw that 
cream away, throw the bottle away.” 

A few moments later she hurried with her 
bowl into the pantry ; there she left it unfin- 
ished and crept noiselessly up the backstairs 
to her room. 

That evening as Professor Hardage sat 
opposite to her, reading, while she was doing 
some needlework, he laid his book down 
with the idea of asking her some question. 
But he caught sight of her expression and 
studied it a few moments. It was so ludi- 
crous a commingling of mortification and 
rage that he laughed outright. 

Why, Anna, what on earth is the 
matter ? ” 

At the first sound of his voice she burst 
into hysterical sobs. 


414 The Mettle of the Pasture 

He came over and tried to draw her fin- 
gers away from her eyes. ‘‘Tell me all 
about it.” 

She shook her head frantically. 

“Yes, tell me,” he urged. “ Is there any- 
thing in all these years that you have not 
told me ? ’* 

“ I cannot,” she sobbed excitedly. “ I 
am disgraced.” 

He laughed. “ What has disgraced you ? ” 

“ A man.” 

“ Good heavens ! ” he cried, “ has some- 
body been making love to you ? ” 

“Yes.” 

His face flushed. “ Come,” he said seri- 
ously, “ what is the meaning of this, 
Anna ? ” 

She told him. 

“ Why aren’t you angry with him ? ” she 
complained, drying her eyes. “ You sit 
there and don’t say a word ! ” 

“ Do you expect me to be angry with any 
soul for loving you and wishing to be loved 
by you ? He cast his mite into the treasury, 
Anna.” 


The Mettle of the Pasture 415 

didn’t mind the mite,” she replied. 
‘‘ But he said I encouraged him, that I en- 
couraged him systematically I' 

“ Did you expect him to be a philosopher ? ” 
I did not expect him to be a — ” She 
hesitated at the harsh word. 

“ I’m afraid you expected him to be a 
philosopher. Haven’t you been kind to 
him ? ” 

Why, of course.” 

“ Systematically kind ? ” 

‘‘ Why, of course.” 

“ Did you have any motive ? ” 

‘‘You know I had no motive — aren’t you 
ashamed ! ” 

“ But did you expect him to be genius 
enough to understand that ? Did you 
suppose that he could understand such a 
thing as kindness without a motive ? Don’t 
be harsh with him, Anna, don’t be hard on 
him : he is an ordinary man and judged you 
by the ordinary standard. You broke your 
alabaster box at his feet, and he secretly sus- 
pected that you were working for something 
more valuable than the box of ointment. 


41 6 The Mettle of the Pasture 

The world is full of people who are kind 
without a motive ; but few of those to 
whom they are kind believe this.*' 

Before Miss Anna fell asleep that night, 
she had resolved to tell Harriet. Every 
proposal of marriage is known at least to 
three people. The distinction in Miss 
Anna’s conduct was not in telling, but in 
not telling until she had actually been 
asked. 

Two mornings later Ambrose was again 
walking through his hall. There is one 
compensation for us all in the large mis- 
eries of life — -we no longer feel the little 
ones. His experience in his suit for Miss 
Anna’s hand already seemed a trifle to 
Ambrose, who had grown used to bearing 
worse things from womankind. Miss Anna 
was not the only woman in the world, he 
averred, by way of swift indemnification. 
Indeed, in the very act of deciding upon 
her, he had been thinking of some one else. 
The road of life had divided equally before 
him : he had chosen Miss Anna as a traveller 
chooses the right fork ; the left fork remained 


The Mettle of the Pasture 417 

and he was now preparing to follow that : it 
led to Miss Harriet Crane. 

As Ambrose how paced his hallway, revolv- 
ing certain details connected with his next 
venture and adventure, the noise of an 
approaching carriage fell upon his ear, and 
going to the front door he recognized the 
brougham of Mrs. Conyers. But it was 
Miss Harriet Crane who leaned forward 
at the window and bowed smilingly to him 
as he hurried out. 

How do you do, Mr. Webb? ” she said, 
putting out her hand and shaking his cor- 
dially, at the same time giving him a glance 
of new-born interest. ‘‘ You know I have 
been threatening to come out for a long 
time. I must owe you an enormous bill 
for pasturage,” she picked up her purse as 
she spoke, and I have come to pay my 
debts. And then I wish to see my calf,” 
and she looked into his eyes very pleasantly. 

^‘You don’t owe me anything,” replied 
Ambrose. What is grass ? What do I 
care for grass? My mind is set on other 
things.” 

2% 


41 8 The Mettle of the Pasture 

He noticed gratefully how gentle and mild 
she looked ; there was such a beautiful soft- 
ness about her and he had had hardness 
enough. He liked her ringlets : they were 
a novelty ; and there hung around her, in 
the interior of the carriage, a perfume that 
was unusual to his sense and that impressed 
him as a reminder of her high social position. 
But Ambrose reasoned that if a daughter of 
his neighbor could wed a Meredith, surely 
he ought to be able to marry a Crane. 

‘Mf you want to see the calf,’’ he said, 
but very reluctantly, I’ll saddle my horse 
and we’ll go over to the back pasture.” 

Don’t saddle your horse,” objected Har- 
riet, opening the carriage door and moving 
over to the far cushion, ‘‘ ride with me.” 

He had never ridden in a brougham, and 
as he got in very nervously and awkwardly, 
he reversed his figure and tried to sit on the 
little front seat on which lay Harriet’s hand- 
kerchief and parasol. 

“ Don’t ride backwards, Mr. Webb,” sug- 
gested Harriet. ‘^Unless you are used to 
it, you are apt to have a headache,” and she 


The Mettle of the Pasture 419 

tapped the cushion beside her as an Invita- 
tion to him. Now tell me about my 
calf/’ she said after they were seated side 
by side. 

As she introduced this subject, Ambrose 
suddenly looked out of the window. She 
caught sight of his uneasy profile. 

‘‘Now, don’t tell me that there’s any bad 
news about it ! ” she cried. “ It is the only 
pet I have.” 

“ Miss Harriet,” he said, turning his face 
farther away, “you forget how long your 
calf has been out here; it isn’t a calf any 
longer: it has had a calf.” 

He spoke so sternly that Harriet, who all 
her life had winced before sternness, felt 
herself In some wise to be blamed. And 
coolness was settling down upon them when 
she desired only a melting and radiant 
warmth. 

“ Well,” she objected apologetically, “ isn’t 
it customary ? What’s the trouble ? What’s 
the objection ? This is a -free country ! 
Whatever is natural is right 1 Why are 
you so displeased?” 


420 The Mettle of the Pasture 

About the same hour the next Monday 
morning Ambrose was again pacing his hall- 
way and thinking of Harriet. At least she 
was no tyrant: the image of her softness 
rose before him again. “ I make no mis- 
take this time.” 

His uncertainty at the present moment 
was concerned solely with the problem of 
what his offering should be in this case ; 
under what image should love present itself? 
The right thought came to him by and by ; 
and taking from his storeroom an orna- 
mental basket with a top to it, he went out to 
his pigeon house and selected two blue squabs. 
They were tender and soft and round ; with- 
out harshness, cruelty, or deception. What- 
ever they seemed to be, that they were ; and 
all that they were was good. 

But as Ambrose walked back to the house, 
he lifted the top of the basket and could 
but admit that they did look bare. Might 
they not, as a love token, be — unrefined? 
He crossed to a flower bed, and, pulling a 
few rose-geranium leaves, tucked them here 
and there about the youngsters. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 421 

It was not his intention to present these 
to Harriet in person ; he had accompanied 
the cream — he would follow the birds ; they 
should precede him twenty-four hours and 
the amative poison would have a chance to 
work. 

During that forenoon his shining buggy 
drawn by his roan mare, herself symbolic of 
softness, drew up before the entrance of the 
Conyers homestead. Ambrose alighted ; 
he lifted the top of the basket — all was 
well. 

“These pets are for your Miss Harriet,'* 
he said to the maid who answered his ring. 

As the maid took the basket through the 
hall after having watched him drive away, 
incredulous as to her senses, she met Mrs. 
Conyers, who had entered the hall from a 
rear veranda. 

“Who rang?" she asked: “and what is 
that?" 

The maid delivered her instructions. Mrs. 
Conyers took the basket and looked in. 

“ Have them broiled for my supper," she 
said with a little click of the teeth, and hand- 


422 The Mettle of the Pasture 

ing the basket to the maid, passed on into 
her bedroom. 

Harriet had been spending the day away 
from home. She returned late. The maid 
met her at the front door and a few moments 
of conversation followed. She hurried into 
the supper room ; Mrs. Conyers sat alone. 

“ Mother,” exclaimed Harriet with horror, 
have you eaten my squabs ? ” 

Mrs. Conyers stabbed at a little pile of 
bones on the side plate. This is what is 
left of them,” she said, touching a napkin to 
her gustatory lips. There are your leaves,” 
she added, pointing to a little vase in front 
of Harriet’s plate. When is he going to 
send you some more ? But tell him we have 
geraniums.” 

The next day Ambrose received a note : 

‘‘Dear Mr. Webb: I have been think- 
ing how pleasant my visit to you was that 
morning. It has not been possible for me 
to get the carriage since or I should have 
been out to thank you for your beautiful 
present. The squabs appealed to me. A 


The Mettle of the Pasture 423 

man who loves them must have tender feel- 
ing ; and that is what all my life I have been 
saying : Give me a man with a heart ! Some- 
time when you are in town, I may meet you 
on the street somewhere and then I can 
thank you more fully than I do now. I 
shall always cherish the memory of your 
kind deed. You must give me the chance 
to thank you very soon, or I shall fear that 
you do not care for my thanks. I take a 
walk about eleven o’clock. 

Sincerely yours, 

‘‘Harriet Crane.” 

Ambrose must have received the note. 

A few weeks later Miss Anna one morn- 
ing received one herself delivered by a boy 
who had ridden in from the farm ; the boy 
waited with a large basket while she read : 

“ Dearest Anna : It is a matter of very 
little importance to mention to you of course, 
but I am married. My husband and I were 

married at yesterday afternoon. He met 

me at an appointed place and we drove quietly 


424 The Mettle of the Pasture 

out of town. What I want you to do at 
once is, send me some clothes, for I left 
all the Conyers apparel where it belonged. 
Send me something of everything. And as 
soon as I am pinned in, I shall invite you 
out. Of course I shall now give orders for 
whatever I desire ; and then I shall return 
to Mrs. Conyers the things I used on my 
bridal trip. 

“ This is a very hurried note, and of course 
I have not very much to say as yet about my 
new life. As for my husband, I can at least 
declare with perfect sincerity that he is mine. 
I have made one discovery already, Anna : 
he cannot be bent except where he has already 
been broken. I am discovering the broken 
places and shall govern him accordingly. 

“ Do try to marry, Anna ! You have no 
idea how a married woman feels toward one 
of her sex who is single. 

“ I want you to be sure to stand at the 
windows about five o'clock this afternoon 
and see the Conyers' cows all come travelling 
home : they graze no more these heavenly 
pastures. It will be the first intimation 


The Mettle of the Pasture 425 

that Mrs. Conyers receives that I am no 
longer the unredeemed daughter of her 
household. Her curiosity will, of course, 
bring her out here as fast as the horse can 
travel. But, oh, Anna, my day has come at 
last ! At last she shall realize that I am 
strong, strong ! I shall receive her with the 
front door locked and talk to her out of the 
window ; and I expect to talk to her a long, 
long time. I shall have the flowers moved 
from the porch to keep them from freezing 
during that interview. 

‘‘As soon as I am settled, as one has so 
much more time in the country than in 
town, I may, after all, take up that course 
of reading : would you object ? 

“ It's a wise saying that every new expe- 
rience brings some new trouble : I longed for^ 
youth before I married ; but to marry after 
you are old — that, Anna, is sorrow indeed. 

“Your devoted friend, 

“ Harriet Crane Webb. 

“ P.S. Don't send any but the plainest 
things ; for I remember, noble friend, how 
it pains you to see me overdressed^ 


IX 


It was raining steadily and the night was 
cold. Miss Anna came hurriedly down into 
the library soon after supper. She had on 
an old waterproof; and in one hand she 
carried a man’s cotton umbrella — her own 
— and in the other a pair of rubbers. As 
she sat down and drew these over her coarse 
walking shoes, she talked in the cheery tone 
of one who has on hand some congenial 
business. 

‘‘ I may get back late and I may not get 
back at all ; it depends upon how the child 
is. But I wish it would not rain when poor 
little children are sick at night — it is the 
one thing that gives me the blues. And I 
wish infants could speak out and tell their 
symptoms. When I see grown people get- 
ting well as soon as they can minutely nar- 
rate to you all their ailments, my heart goes 
out to babies. Think how they would crow 
and gurgle, if they could only say what it is 
426 


The Mettle of the Pasture 427 

all about. . But I don’t see why people at 
large should not be licensed to bring in a 
bill when their friends insist upon describing 
their maladies to them : doctors do. But I 
must be going. Good night.” 

She rose and stamped her feet into the 
rubbers to make them fit securely ; and then 
she came across to the lamp-lit table beside 
which he sat watching her fondly — his book 
dropped the while upon his lap. He grasped 
her large strong hand in his large strong 
hand ; and she leaned her side against his 
shoulder and put her arm around his neck. 

‘‘You are getting younger, Anna,” he 
said, looking up into her face and drawing 
her closer. 

“ Why not ? ” she answered with a voice 
of splendid joy. “ Harriet is married ; what 
troubles have I, then? And she patronizes 
— or matronizes — me and tyrannizes over 
Ambrose : so the world is really succeeding 
at last. But I wish her husband had not 
asked me first ; that is her thorn.” 

“ And the thorn will grow ! ” 

“ Now, don’t sit up late ! ” she pleaded. 


428 The Mettle of the Pasture 

I turned your bed down and arranged the 
pillows wrong end out as you will have them ; 
and I put out your favorite night-shirt — 
the one with the sleeves torn off above the 
elbows and the ravellings hanging down just 
as you require. Aren’t you tired of books 
yet ? Are you never going to get tired ? 
And the same books! Why, I get fresh 
babies every few years — a complete change.” 

‘‘ How many generations of babies do you 
suppose there have been since this immortal 
infant was born ? ” he asked, laying his hand 
reverently over the book on his lap as if 
upon the head of a divine child. 

‘‘ I don’t know and I don’t care,” she re- 
plied. I wish the immortal infant would 
let you alone.” She stooped and kissed his 
brow, and wrung his hand silently, and went 
out into the storm. He heard her close the 
street door and heard the rusty click of her 
cotton umbrella as she raised it. Then he 
turned to the table at his elbow and kindled 
his deep-bowled pipe and drew over his legs 
the skirts of his long gown, coarse, austere, 
sombre. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 429 

He looked comfortable. A rainy night 
may depress a woman nursing a sick child 
that is not her own — a child already fight- 
ing for its feeble, unclaimed, repudiated life, 
in a world of weeping clouds ; but such a 
night diffuses cheer when the raindrops are 
heard tapping the roof above beloved book- 
shelves, tapping the window-panes ; when 
there is low music in the gutter on the back 
porch ; when a student lamp, throwing its 
shadow over the ceiling and the walls, re- 
serves its exclusive lustre for lustrous pages 
— pages over which men for centuries have 
gladly burnt out the oil of their brief lamps, 
their iron and bronze, their silver and gold 
and jewelled lamps — many-colored eyes of 
the nights of ages. 

It was now middle September of another 
year and Professor Hardage had entered 
upon the work of another session. The in- 
terval had left no outward mark on him. 
The mind stays young a long time when 
nourished by a body such as his ; and the 
body stays young a long time when mastered 
by such a mind. Day by day faithfully to do 


430 The Mettle of the Pasture 

one’s work and to be restless for no more ; 
without bitterness to accept obscurity for 
ambition ; to possess all vital passions and 
to govern them ; to stand on the world’s 
thoroughfare and see the young generations 
hurrying by, and to put into the hands of a 
youth here and there a light which will burn 
long after our own personal taper is extin- 
guished; to look back upon the years already 
gone as not without usefulness and honor, 
and forward to what may remain as safe at 
least from failure or any form of shame, and 
thus for one’s self to feel the humility of the 
part before the greatness of the whole of life, 
and yet the privileges and duties of the indi- 
vidual to the race — this brings blessedness 
if it does not always bring happiness, and it 
had brought both to him. 

He sat at peace beside his lamp. The 
interval had brought changes to his towns- 
people. As he had walked home this after- 
noon, he had paused and looked across at 
some windows of the second story of a fa- 
miliar corner. The green shutters, tightly 
closed, were gray with cobweb and with dust. 


The Mettle of the Pasture 431 

One sagged from a loosened hinge and 
flapped in the rising autumn wind, showing 
inside a window sash also dust-covered and 
with a newspaper crammed through a broken 
pane. Where did Ravenel Morris live now? 
Did he live at all ? 

Accustomed as he was to look through the 
distances of human history, to traverse the 
areas of its religions and see how its great 
conflicting faiths have each claimed the unique 
name of revelation for itself, he could not 
anywhere discover what to him was clear 
proof either of the separate existence of the 
soul or of its immortal life hereafter. The 
security of that belief was denied him. He 
had wished for it, had tried to make it his. 
But while it never became a conviction, it 
remained a force. Under all that reason 
could affirm or could deny, there dwelt un- 
accountable confidence that the light of hu- 
man life, leaping from headland to headland, 
— the long transmitted radiance of thought, — 
was not to go out with the inevitable physical 
extinction of the species on this planet. Some- 
where in the universe he expected to meet his 


432 The Mettle of the Pasture 

own, all whom he had loved, and to see this 
friend. Meantime, he accepted the fact of 
death in the world with that uncomplaining 
submission to nature which is in the strength 
and sanity of genius. As acquaintances left 
him, one after another, memory but kindled 
another lamp ; hope but disclosed another 
white flower on its mysterious stem. 

He sat at peace. The walls of the library 
showed their changes. There were valuable 
maps on Caesar’s campaigns which had been 
sent him from Berlin ; there were other maps 
from Athens ; there was something from the 
city of Hannibal, and something from Tiber. 
Indeed, there were not many places in Isa- 
bel’s wandering from which she had not sent 
home to him some proof that he was remem- 
bered. And always she sent letters which 
were more than maps or books, being in them- 
selves charts to the movements of her spirit. 
They were regular ; they were frank ; they 
assured him how increasingly she needed his 
friendship. When she returned, she declared 
she would settle down to be near him for the 
rest of life. Few names were mentioned in 


The Mettle of the Pasture 43 ^ 

these letters : never Rowan’s ; never Mrs. 
Osborn’s — that lifelong friendship having 
been broken ; and in truth since last March 
young Mrs. Osborn’s eyes had been sealed 
to the reading of all letters. But beneath 
everything else, he could always trace the 
presence of one unspoken certainty — that 
she was passing through the deeps without 
herself knowing what height or what heath 
her feet would reach at last, there to abide. 

As he had walked homeward this afternoon 
through the dusk, something else had drawn 
his attention : he was passing the Conyers 
homestead, and already lights were beginning 
to twinkle in the many windows ; there was 
to be a ball that night, and he thought of the 
unconquerable woman ruling within, appar- 
ently gaining still in vitality and youth. 
‘‘ Unjailed malefactors often attain great 
ages,” he said to himself, as he turned away 
and thought of the lives she had helped to 
blight and shorten. 

As the night advanced, he fell under the 
influence of his book, was drawn out of his 
poor house, away from his obscure town, his 


434 Mettle of the Pasture 

unknown college, quitted his country and 
his age, passing backward until there fell 
around him the glorious dawn of the race 
before the sunrise of written history : the im- 
mortal still trod the earth ; the human soldier 
could look away from his earthly battle-field 
and see, standing on a mountain crest, the 
figure and the authority of his Divine Com- 
mander. Once more it was the flower-dyed 
plain, blood-dyed as well ; the ships drawn 
up by the gray, the wrinkled sea ; over on 
the other side, well-built Troy ; and the cri- 
sis of the long struggle was coming. Hec- 
tor, of the glancing plume, had come back 
to the city for the last time, mindful of his 
end. 

He read once more through the old scene 
that is never old, and then put his book 
aside and sat thinking of Hector’s words : 
“ I know not if the gods will not overthrow me, 
. . . / have very sore shame if like a coward^ 
I shrink away from battle ; moreover mine own 
soul forbiddeth me, , , , Destiny ,,, no man 
hath escaped^ be he coward or be he valiant^ 
when once he hath been born I' 


The Mettle of the Pasture 435 

His eyes had never rested on any spot in 
human history, however separated in time 
and place, where the force of those words 
did not seem to reign. Whatsoever the 
names under which men have conceived and 
worshipped their gods or their God, how- 
ever much they have believed that it was 
these or it was He who overthrew them and 
made their destinies inescapable, after all, it 
is the high compulsion of the soul itself, the 
final mystery of personal choice, that sends 
us forth at last to our struggles and to our 
peace : mine own soul forbiddeth me ” — 

there for each is right and wrong, the eternal 
beauty of virtue. 

He did not notice the sound of approach- 
ing wheels, and that the sound ceased at his 
door. 

A moment later and Isabel with light 
footsteps stood before him. He sprang up 
with a cry and put his arms around her and 
held her. 

“You shall never go away again.” 

“No, I am never going away again; I 
have come back to marry Rowan.” 


436 The Mettle of the Pasture 

These were her first words to him as they 
sat face to face. And she quickly went on : 
“ How is he ? 

He shook his head reproachfully at her: 
“ When I saw him at least he seemed better 
than you seem.” 

‘‘ I knew he was not well — I have known 
it for a long time. But you saw him — in 
town — on the street — with his friends — 
attending to business ? ” 

'^'Yes — in town — on the street — with 
his friends — attending to business.” 

“ May I stay here ? I ordered my lug- 
gage to be sent here.” 

“ Your room is ready and has always been 
ready and waiting since the day you left. I 
think Anna has been putting fresh flowers 
in it all autumn. You will find some there 
to-night. She has insisted of late that you 
would soon be coming home.” 

An hour later she came down into the 
library again. She had removed the traces 
of travel, and she had travelled slowly and 
was not tired. All this enabled him to see 
how changed she was ; and without looking 


r 

? 


The Mettle of the Pasture 437 

older, how strangely oldened and grown how 
quiet of spirit. She had now indeed become 
sister for him to those images of beauty that 
were always haunting him — those far, dim 
images of the girlhood of her sex, with their 
faces turned away from the sun and their eyes 
looking downward, pensive in shadow, too 
freighted with thoughts of their brief fate 
and their immortality. 

I must have a long talk with you before 
I try to sleep. I must empty my heart to 
you once.’* 

He knew that she needed the relief, and 
that what she asked of him during these 
hours would be silence. 

I have tried everything, and everything 
has failed. I have tried absence, but absence 
has not separated me from him. I have 
tried silence, but through the silence I have 
never ceased speaking to him. Nothing has 
really ever separated us ; nothing ever can. 
It is more than will or purpose, it is my life. 
It is more than life to me, it is love.” 

She spoke very quietly, and at first she 
seemed unable to progress very far from the 


438 The Mettle of the Pasture 

beginning. After every start, she soon came 
back to that one beginning. 

‘‘It is of no use to weigh the right and 
the wrong of it : I tried that at first, and I 
suppose that is why I made sad mistakes. 
You must not think that I am acting now 
from a sense of duty to him or to myself. 
Duty does not enter into my feeling : it is 
love; all that I am forbids me to do any- 
thing else.** 

But after a while she went back and bared 
before him in a way the history of her heart. 

“ The morning after he told me, I went to 
church. I remember the lessons of the day 
and the hymns, and how I left the church be- 
fore the sermon, because everything seemed 
to be on his side, and no one was on mine. 
He had done wrong and was guilty ; and I 
had done no wrong and was innocent ; and the 
church comforted him and overlooked me ; 
and I was angry and walked out of it. 

“And do you remember the day I came 
to see you and you proposed everything to 
me, and I rejected everything? You told 
me to go away for a while, to throw myself 


The Mettle of the Pasture 439 

into the pleasures of other people ; you re- 
minded me of prayer and of the duty of for- 
giveness ; you told me to try to put myself 
in his place, and reminded me of self-sacrifice, 
and then said at last that I must leave it to 
time, which sooner or later settles everything. 
I rejected everything that you suggested. 
But I have accepted everything since, and 
have learned a lesson and a service from 
each: the meaning of prayer and of forgive- 
ness and of self-sacrifice ; and what the lapse 
of time can do to bring us to ourselves and 
show us what we wish. I say, I have lived 
through all these, and I have gotten some- 
thing out of them all; but however much 
they may mean, they never constitute love; 
and it is my love that brings me back to him 
now.” 

Later on she recurred to the idea of self- 
sacrifice : much of her deepest feeling seemed 
to gather about that. 

“ I am afraid that you do not realize what 
it means to a woman when a principle like 
this is involved. Can any man ever know ? 
Does he dream what it means to us women 


440 The Mettle of the Pasture 

to sacrifice ourselves as they often require us 
to do? I have been travelling in old lands 
— so old that the history of each goes back 
until we can follow it with our eyes no 
longer. But as far as we can see, we see this 
sorrow — the sorrow of women who have 
wished to be first in the love of the men 
they have loved. You, who read every- 
thing ! Cannot you see them standing all 
through history, the sad figures of girls 
who have only asked for what they gave, 
love in its purity and its singleness — have 
only asked that there should have been no 
other before them ? And cannot you see 
what a girl feels when she consents to accept 
anything less, — that she is lowered to her- 
self from that time on, — has lost her own 
ideal of herself, as well as her ideal of the 
man she loves ? And cannot you see how 
she lowers herself in his eyes also and ceases 
to be his ideal, through her willingness to 
live with him on a lower plane ? That is 
our wound. That is our trouble and our 
sorrows I have found it wherever I have 
gone/® 


The Mettle of the Pasture 441 

Long before she said this to him, she had 
questioned him closely about Rowan. He 
withheld from her knowledge of some things 
which he thought she could better bear to 
learn later and by degrees. 

“ I knew he was net well,” she said ; ‘‘ I 
feared it might be worse. Let me tell you 
this : no one knows him as I do. I must 
speak plainly. First, there was his trouble ; 
that shattered for him one ideal in his life. 
Then this drove him to a kind of self-con- 
cealment; and that wounded another ideal 
— his love of candor. Then he asked me 
to marry him, and he told me the truth 
about himself and I turned him off. Then 
came the scandals that tried to take away his 
good name, and I suppose have taken it 
away. And then, through all this, were the 
sufferings he was causing others around him, 
and the earlier loss of his mother. I have 
lived through all these things with him while 
I have been away, and I understand; they 
sap life. I am going up to write to him 
now, and will you post the letter to-night ? 
I wish him to come to see me at once, and 


442 The Mettle of the Pasture 

our marriage must take place as soon as 
possible — here — very quietly.** 

Rowan came the next afternoon. She 
was in the library ; and he went in and shut 
the door, and they were left alone. 

Professor Hardage and Miss Anna sat in 
an upper room. He had no book and she 
had no work ; they were thinking only of the 
two downstairs. And they spoke to each 
other in undertones, breaking the silence with 
brief sentences, as persons speak when await- 
ing news from sick-rooms. 

Daylight faded. Outside the lamplighter 
passed, torching the grimy lamps. Miss 
Anna spoke almost in a whisper : “ Shall I 
have some light sent in ? ** 

‘‘ No, Anna.** 

Did you tell him what the doctors have 
said about his health ? ** 

‘‘ No ; there was bad news enough without 
that for one day. He will tell her. And then 
happiness might bring back health to him. 
The malady that has attacked him will have 
to be put down as one of the consequences 


The Mettle of the Pasture 443 

of all that has occurred to him — as part of 
what he is and of what he has done. The 
origin of physical disease may lie in our 
troubles — our nervous shocks, our remorses, 
and better strivings.'' 

The supper hour came. 

I do not wish any supper, Anna." 

‘‘Nor I. How long they stay together ! " 

“ They have a great deal to say to each 
other, Anna." 

“ I know, I know. Poor children ! " 

“ I believe he is only twenty-five." 

“ When Isabel comes up, do you think I 
ought to go to her room and see whether she 
wants anything ? " 

“ No, Anna." 

“ And she must not know that we have been 
sitting up, as though we felt sorry for them 
and could not go on with our own work." 

“ I met Marguerite and Barbee this after- 
noon walking together. I suppose she will 
come back to him at last. But she has had 
her storm, and he knows it, and he knows 
there will never be any storm for him. She 
is another one of those girls of mine — not 


444 Mettle of the Pasture 

sad, but with half the sun shining on them 
But half a sun shining steadily, as it will 
always shine on her, is a great deal.” 

Hush ! ” said Miss Anna, in a whisper, 
“he is gone! Isabel is coming up the steps.” 

They heard her and then they did not hear 
her, and then again and then not again. 

Miss Anna started up : 

“ She needs me I ” 

He held her back : 

“ No, Anna ! Not to help her is to help 
her.” 


X 

One afternoon late in the autumn of tne 
following year, when a waiting stillness lay 
on the land and shimmering sunlight opened 
up the lonely spaces of woods and fields, the 
Reaper who comes to all men and reaps what 
they have sown, approached the home of the 
Merediths and announced his arrival to the 
young master of the house : he would await 
his pleasure. 

Rowan had been sitting up, propped by 
his pillows. It was the room of his grand- 
father as it had been that of the man pre- 
ceding ; the bed had been their bed ; and 
the first to place it where it stood may have 
had in mind a large window, through which 
as he woke from his nightly sleep he might 
look far out upon the land, upon rolling 
stately acres. 

Rowan looked out now : past the ever- 
greens just outside to the shining lawn be- 
44S 


44 ^ The Mettle of the Pasture 

yond ; and farther away, upon fields of 
brown shocks — guiltless harvest ; then 
toward a pasture on the horizon. He could 
see his cattle winding slowly along the edge 
of a russet woodland on which the slanting 
sunlight fell. Against the blue sky in the 
silvery air a few crows were flying : all went 
in the same direction but each went without 
companions. He watched their wings curi- 
ously with lonely, following eyes. Whither 
home passed they ? And by whose sum- 
mons ? And with what guidance ? 

A deep yearning stirred him, and he 
summoned his wife and the nurse with his 
infant son. He greeted her; then raising 
himself on one elbow and leaning over the 
edge of the bed, he looked a long time at 
the boy slumbering on the nurse’s lap. 

The lesson of his brief span of years 
gathered into his gaze. 

“ Life of my life,” he said, with that 
lesson on his lips, “ sign of my love, of 
what was best in me, this is my prayer for 
you : may you find one to love you such 
as your father found ; when you come to 


The Mettle of the Pasture 447 

ask her to unite her life with yours, may you 
be prepared to tell her the truth about your- 
self, and have nothing to tell that would 
break her heart and break the hearts of 
others. May it be said of you that you 
are a better man than your father.** 

He had the child lifted and he kissed his 
forehead and his eyes. “ By the purity of 
your own life guard the purity of your sons 
for the long honor of our manhood.** Then 
he made a sign that the nurse should with- 
draw. 

When she had withdrawn, he put his face 
down on the edge of the pillow where his 
wife knelt, her face hidden. His hair fell 
over and mingled with her hair. He passed 
his arm around her neck and held her close. 

‘^All your troubles came to you because 
you were true to the highest. You asked 
only the highest from me, and the highest 
was more than I could give. But be kind 
to my memory. Try to forget what is best 
forgotten, but remember what is worth re- 
membering. Judge me for what I was ; but 
judge me also for what I wished to be. 


448 The Mettle of the Pasture 

Teach my son to honor my name ; and 
when he is old enough to understand, tell 
him the truth about his father. Tell him 
what it was that saddened our lives. As he 
looks into his mother's face, it will steady 
him.” 

He put both arms around her neck. 

“ I am tired of it all,” he said. “ I want 
rest. Love has been more cruel to me than 
death.” 

A few days later, an afternoon of the same 
autumnal stillness, they bore him across his 
threshold with that gentleness which so often 
comes too late — slowly through his many- 
colored woods, some leaves drifting down 
upon the sable plumes and lodging in 
them — along the turnpike lined with dusty 
thistles — through the watching town, a long 
procession, to the place of the unreturning. 

They laid him with his fathers. 







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